1  R  INLAND  SEA 

THE  STORY  OF  A  HOMESTEAD 


A  L  F  R  E  D 


A  M  B  O  U  R  N  E 


BANCROFT 
LIBRARY 

<» 

THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


OUR  INLAND  SEA. 


OUR  INLAND  SEA 

THE  STORY  OF  A  HOMESTEAD 
BY    ALFRED     LAMBOURNE 


THE    DESERET^NEWS 

Publishers 

1909 


Copyright,  1909, 
By  ALFRED  LAMBOURNE. 


PREFACE. 

Our  Inland  Sea  now  appears  in  its  final  form. 
It  was,  in  part,  first  issued  as  newspaper  and 
magazine  articles,  and  secondly  as  an  illustrated 
pamphlet.  The  latter  publication  was  given  an 
extensive  circulation  on  both  sides  the  Atlantic, 
having  passed  through  many  issues,  so  that  in 
that  form,  the  work  appeared  to  contain — ten 
years  having  elapsed  between  the  first  and  last 
editions — a  certain  vitality.  It  was  originally 
printed  in  book  form — Boston,  1895 — for  use  as 
a  presentation  souvenir ;  few  of  these  volumes, 
however,  having  been  seen  by  the  public.  Once 
again  it  was  issued  in  book  form,  locally,  1902. 
In  the  present  volume  there  is  much  additional* 
and  an  almost  entirely  new  arrangement  of  the 
matter  that  the  work  contains. 

As  will  readily  be  seen,  the  book  is  composed 
of  paragraphs  taken  from  an  irregular  diary, 
segregated,  of  course,  from  other  matter  con- 


6  PREFACE. 

tained  therein  and  re-arranged,  with  now  and 
then  a  conjunctional  word  or  sentence,  and  a  few 
imaginary  and  explanatory  paragraphs. 

It  was  the  writer's  desire  to  carry  out  to  the 
full  the  plan  here  outlined.  He  would,  had  it 
been  possible  to  him,  have  made  out  of  what  is 
now  a  past  dream,  an  unquestioned  reality.  The 
arrangements  by  which  he  surrendered  his 
Homestead  Right—No.  12592— to  the  State  of 
Utah,  and  the  legal  fight  thereafter,  the  questions 
as  to  whether  the  land  was  of  a  mineral  or  agri- 
cultural character,  are  matters  of  local  and  de- 
partmental record.  The  receipts  for  attorneys' 
fees;  papers  of  hearing;  demurrers;  answers  to 
demurrers,  etc.,  without  end,  are  facts.  So,  too, 
is  the  key  to  my  hut  which  I  still  retain ;  and  the 
circulars,  catalogues,  etc.,  which  I  received  whilst 
planning  my  vineyard,  a  vineyard  which  the  local 
papers  declared  at  the  time,  was  to  be  like  unto 
that  of  Naboth,  whose  luxuriant  beauty  caused  a 
tragic  episode  in  the  history  of  ancient  Israel. 


"That  is  best  which  lieth  nearest." 


INTRODUCTION. 

The  Inland  Sea  is  unique.  In  the  Quarternary 
period,  so  our  geologists  tell  us,  a  vast  body  of 
glacier-fed  water  covered  the  valleys  of  north- 
western Utah.  Of  the  ancient  Bonneville,  as  the 
vanished  sea  is  designated,  our  subject  is  the  bit- 
ter fragment.  The  first  mention  of  the  Inland 
Sea  was  made  by  Baron  La  Hontan,  in  1689.  A 
Mr.  Miller,  of  the  Jacob  Astor  party,  stood  by  its 
shore  in  1820,  and  Mr.  John  Bedyear  in  1825. 
Members  of  Captain  Bonne ville's  expedition 
looked  upon  its  waters  from  near  the  mouth  of 
Ogden  River,  in  1833,  and  Bonneville  gave  a 
rather  fanciful  description  of  the  sea,  as  viewed 
from  the  mountain  side  (Irving),  although  it  is 
not  certain  if  ever  he  was  himself,  an  eye-witness 
of  the  scene.  However  his  name  attaches  to  the 
great  fossil  body  of  water,  whose  shore  lines  may 
still  be  seen  along  the  sides  of  the  neighboring 
valleys. 


10  INTRODUCTION. 

i 

Once  the  Inland  Sea  was  described  as  a  sullen, 
listless,  deadly  sheet  of  water.  Such  it  is  not.  On 
the  contrary,  however,  one  must  receive  with 
caution,  the  statements  of  later  writers.  Alter- 
nately one  is  captivated  by  the  strange  beauty 
which  the  place  presents,  or  repelled  by  the  ugli- 
ness that  is  seen  along  its  shores. 

By  the  low  grounds  marking  the  margins  of 
the  valleys;  by  the  flats,  white  with  encrusted 
salt  and  alkali;  the  beaches  are  truly  forbidding. 
Melancholy  appears  to  have  there  taken  up  its 
permanent  abode. 

Where  the  mountains  stoop  to  the  sea,  or 
where  the  islands  lift  from  its  surface,  are  scenes 
both  grand  and  imposing.  There  are  beaches  of 
pebbles  and  sand ;  extensive  marshes,  at  the  river 
mouths,  haunted  by  the  birds  that  love  such 
places ;  shores  on  which  are  monster  boulders,  or 
which  are  littered  with  heaps  of  fallen  stone; 
high  cliffs  look  down  upon  the  passer-by,  along 
the  horizon  are  chains  of  noble  mountains,  and 
always  are  the  shining  waters  respondent  to  the 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

changing  skies,  and  the  light  of  a  brilliant  and 
prismatic  luminary. 

The  Inland  Sea  is  4210  feet  above  ocean  level. 
Its  length  is  somewhere  between  seventy  and 
eighty  miles,  its  width  between  thirty  and  forty. 
It  contains  four  large  islands — Stansbury's, 
Church,  Carrington  and  Fremont,  and  three  that 
are  smaller — Strong's  Knob,  Dolphin  and  Gun- 
nison.  Along  the  eastern  shore  lies  the  lofty 
Wasatch;  to  the  south  the  Oquirrh,  the  Onaqui, 
Tuilla  or  Grantsville  Mountains,  and  to  the  west, 
the  Terrace  and  other  spurs  of  the  Desert  Range. 

Black  Rock,  Garfield  Beach  and  Saltair  Pa- 
vilion are  all  on  the  southern  shore.  From  either 
of  these  three  points,  looking  northward,  sky  and 
water  are  seen  to  meet,  save  on  very  clear  days, 
when  the  Malad  and  Raft  River  Mountains  greet 
the  sight,  defining,  in  that  direction,  the  barrier 
line  of  the  ancient  Bonneville. 

Another  quarter  of  a  century,  it  has  been  pre- 
dicted, and  the  Inland  Sea  will  be  no  more.  Obit. 
has  been  written  of  Bonneville,  and  the  older  La 


12  INTRODUCTION. 

Hontan,  and  it  may  be  that  this  later  resultant 
body  of  water  is  doomed.  But  if  these  pages  re- 
cord the  passing  away  of  a  great  natural  phenom- 
enon, the  last  days  of  the  Inland  Sea,  remains  to 
be  seen. 


CONTENTS. 

I.    Gunnison  Island  in  Winter 19 

II.     Books  and  a  Raven 31 

III.  Wild  and  Windy  March 43 

IV.  Redeeming  the  Waste 53 

V.     Snow- Waves  and  Flowers 63 

VI.    A  Cruise  Round  My  Home 73 

VII.    The  Twenty-first  of  June 85 

VIII.    Under  the  Dog-Star. . . ... 95 

IX.    A  Guest  in  the  Vineyard 107 

X.     Contents  of  a  Cairn 119 

XL     Old  and  New  Death 131 

XII.    The  Harvests  of  Time 141 

XIII.  From  Life  to  Life 153 

XIV.  The  Pageants  of  History 163 

XV.    And  Lo!  the  Plagues 175 

XVI.     The  Autumnal  Equinox 185 

XVII.     My  Homestead  Horizons 197 

XVIII.     On  Slope  and  on  Shore 209 

XIX.     Voice  of  the  Swan 221 

XX.    A  Last  Drift-wood  Fire 231 

XXI.     Gunnison  Island— Farewell 241 

Supplement  249 


HEADING  AND  PAGE  VIGNETTES 
BY  JAMES  T.  HARWOOD. 

PAGE  VIGNETTES. 

"The  Silent,  Implacable  Days" 32 

Springtime  on  the  Heights 66 

Monolith  on  the  Northern  Cliff 88 

Lake  Blanche,  Wasatch  Mts 122 

Moonlight  at  Lake  Lillian 156 

Storm  at  the  Northern  Cliff 188 

Sunset  on  the  Desert  Edge 224 


GUNNISON  ISLAND  IN  WINTER. 


OUR  INLAND  SEA 


GUNNISON  ISLAND  IN  WINTER. 

GHOSTLY,  wrapped  in  its  shroud  of  snow, 
my  island  stands  white  above  the  black- 
ness of  unfreezing  waters. 
What  have  I    done?      Although  I  had  lived 
these  days  by  anticipation,  no  sooner  had  the  sails 
of  the  departing  yacht  vanished  below  the  watery 

19 


20  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

horizon,  and  left  me  with  my  thoughts  alone, 
than  I  realized  at  once,  and  with  a  strange  sink- 
ing of  the  heart,  how  more  intense,  indeed,  how 
deeper  than  all  imagining,  is  the  wildness  and 
desolation  of  the  savage  poem  around  me. 

Clearly  I  have  committed  an  error !  In  winter 
this  comfortless  place  might  be  some  lonely  spot 
of  the  Arctics.  Often  on  still  nights  the  snow 
around  my  dwelling  is  illumined  by"  the  boreal 
light.  Through  the  hours,  at  times  of  tempest,  is 
heard  the  grinding  of  boulders,  as  they  are  lifted 
by  the  heavy  brine  and  then  let  fall  again  to 
pound  great  holes  in  the  outlying  strata,  or  the 
roar  of  the  breakers  as  they  hurl  briny  foam  far 
up  the  face  of  the  Northern  Cliff. 

"A  man,"  says  Alger,  "may  keep  by  himself  be- 
cause he  is  either  a  knave  or  a  fool,"  and  Bacon, 
in  writing  "Of  Friendship,"  has  put  in  italics  this 
quoted  sentence  from  Aristotle.  "  Whosoever  is 
delighted  in  solitude  is  either  a  wild  beast  or  a 
god."  Now  I  am  not  a  knave,  and  there  are 
good  reasons,  I  hope,  why  I  should  not  consider 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  21 

myself  a  fool.  Neither  am  I  a  wild  beast,  nor 
may  I  arrogate  unto  myself  the  belief  that  I  am 
a  god.  Yet  for  the  time  being,  I  have  chosen 
to  be  alone. 

"What  a  man  has  in  himself,"  writes  Schop- 
enhauer, "is  the  chief  element  in  his  happiness." 
This,  however,  the  sage  makes  haste  to  define  as 
— "apart  from  health  and  beauty — the  power  to 
observe  and  commune."  "The  proper  study  of 
mankind  is  man."  We  must  allow  that  dictum. 
Nature  is  secondary.  The  alleys  in  the  wood  or 
forest  of  Windsor  or  Arden  were  but  backgrounds 
in  the  mind  of  Shakespeare — stage-settings  for 
the  actors  in  the  human  drama. 

Here  is  the  digest  of   the   thought  I  follow: 
44 If  the  seeking  of  isolation  proceed  not  out  of 
a  mere  love  of  solitude,  but  out  of  a  lobe  and 
desire  to  sequester  a  man's  self  for  a  higher 
conversation,    then,    indeed,"  writes  Veralum, 
44 one  may    feel    the   god-like    within    us." 
And  in  this  benefit  I  hope  to  share.    Saying  unto 
my  soul :  From  out  the  wildness  of  this  des- 
ert solitude,  I  desire  to  extract  the  beautiful 


22  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

and  the  good,  and  to  be  taught,  too,  by  the 
voices  that  dwell  therein,  I  plead  NOT  GUILTY 
to  the  charges  of  moroseness,  and  also  to 
those  equal  follies  against  T&htch  the  master 
last  quoted  has  warned  as — "a  too  great  admira- 
tion of  antiquity  and  a  lote  of  novelty." 

Is  this  the  North  Cape?  Dreary  is  the  land 
and  dreary  is  the  sea.  My  hut,  massive  though 
small,  its  low,  thick  walls,  built  of  rough,  untrim- 
med  slabs  of  stone,  taken  from  the  cliff  by  which 
they  stand,  its  roof,  earth-covered,  its  chimney 
starting  from  the  ground,  and  almost  as  big  as 
the  hut  itself — might  be  that  of  some  hardy  Lo- 
foten fisherman.  By  the  distant  islands,  that  on 
winter  days  appear  like  mighty  bergs,  by  the 
tongues  of  land,  resembling  snow-covered  floes, 
by  the  brine,  more  like  a  plain  of  ice  than  water, 
and  by  the  midnight  moon,  with  a  lonely  storm- 
ring  round  it,  the  northern  feeling  is  further  sup- 
plied. I  rise  late.  Oil  and  drift-wood  are  not  so 
plentiful  that  one  should  use  unseemly  hours  for 
their  burning.  Slowly,  O  slowly,  the  hours 
creep  by! 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  23 

More  trying  are  the  silent,  implacable  days 
than  are  the  times  of  uproar.  I  am  made  to  con- 
fess that  "Time  is  the  most  terrible,  the  most  dis- 
couraging, the  most  unconquerable  of  all  obsta- 
cles." For  exercise,  when  the  weather  is  clear,  I 
hack  at  the  tough,  old  roots  of  the  Sarcobatus 
bushes,  or,  again,  I  grub  among  the  roots  of  the 
antique  sage.  Already  the  thoughts  of  social  in- 
tercourse grow  strangely  remote.  For  Christ- 
mas Carol,  for  New  Year's  Greeting,  I  hear  only 
the  shrill,  sudden  call  of  the  gull,  or  the  dry, 
harsh  croak  of  the  passing  raven.  In  the  still- 
ness, the  bitter  cold  frets  the  surface  of  wind- 
drift  and  level,  in  the  lengthened  night,  the 
storm-clouds  hang  low,  or  slowly  big  snow- 
flakes  fall  out  of  the  sky. 

Sometimes  the  vault  appears  black.  That  is,  I 
mean,  as  we  sometimes  see  it  on  the  mountain 
tops,  as  it  is  on  certain  noon-days  when  the  sky 
is  cloudless,  and  the  near  snow-fields  rise  against 
it.  Black,  as  it  really  is,  with  a  thin,  scumbling 
of  atmospheric  cobalt.  Then  the  island  snow 
takes  on  the  spectrum  hues.  The  angles,  flut- 


24  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

ings,  waves,  and  mounds  of  wind-carved  drifts 
catch  the  white  light,  and  resolves  it  back  into 
its  component  parts.  Sometimes  the  distant 
mountain  heights  smoke  in  the  dawn  like  tired 
horses,  or  the  sun  rises  like  a  disk  of  copper, 
ruddy  through  the  spindrift  brine.  There  are 
times  when,  by  the  light  of  a  half-wasted  morn- 
ing moon,  the  new  island  snow  appears  of  a 
wondrous  lilac,  or,  on  the  jutting  shoulder  of  The 
Northern  Cliff,  it  is  touched  with  a  paly  gold.  On 
cloudy  days,  during  the  mid-winter  thaw,  they 
shrink  in  the  breath  of  Chinook  and  grow  leaden- 
hued,  or,  as  some  storm  rolls  back  to  the  moun- 
tain summits,  they  seem  bathed  in  a  mixture  of 
fire  and  blood,  or,  later,  as  the  light  of  sunset 
fades  along  the  cliff-top,  they  become  of  that  cold 
and  ghastly  green,  the  sight  of  which  makes  one 
shudder. 

Sometimes,  indeed,  a  feeling  of  awe  is  upon 
me.  Often,  as  in  the  Norse  Mythology,  the  sun 
comes  up,  all  faint  and  wan,  sick  nigh  unto  death 
it  seems,  and  languidly  looks  o'er  the  world  of 
white.  What  thoughts  are  mine!  In  the  dim, 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  25 

uncertain,  and  mysterious  twilight,  when  all  sur- 
rounding objects  expand  to  the  sight,  I  half  ex- 
pect to  see,  looking  upon  me  from  out  the  west- 
ern desert,  some  angry  deity  of  the  Indian's  for- 
gotten pantheon ;  or,  as  my  thoughts  revert  again 
to  the  olden  world,  to  see,  springing  from  that 
Nifelheim  in  the  north,  the  gaunt,  gray  form  of 
the  Fenris  Wolf,  and  to  behold  his  fiery  eyes  as 
he  passes  onward  to  his  terrible  feast,  when  the 
Asas,  Odin  and  Thor,  and  the  lesser  ones,  too, 
shall  become  his  prey  in  Rangnarok,  the  last, 
weird  twilight  of  the  Northern  gods. 

On  the  mountains,  today,  a  wind-storm  is  rag- 
ing. So  fierce  up  there  is  the  gale,  one  could 
scarcely  keep  his  footing.  The  great  snow-ban- 
ners are  whirled  from  the  crests,  and  grand  and 
solemn,  I  know,  is  the  sound,  when  the  strong 
northern  winds  smite  upon  those  harps,  the  pines, 
and  when,  along  the  mountain  sides,  the  loosened 
snow  is  caught  from  the  forest  branches  and  sent 
madly  up  by  crag  and  ravine.  But  see !  How  the 
wind  can  revel  on  these  waters,  too !  Behold  how 


26  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

they  sweep  over  the  long  reaches  of  unbroken 
brine;  how  they  pick  up  the  foam-dust  from  the 
waves  of  the  Inland  Sea,  and,  mixing  it  with 
snow-dust  from  the  island  cliffs,  whirl  it  around 
and  around!  Yesterday  the  sun-dogs  gleamed 
over  the  desert  hills — but  now !  Did  Dante,  as  he 
walked  with  Virgil  amid  the  shades  of  the  In- 
ferno, witness  more  fierce  commotion?  As  fierce- 
ly as  were  the  spirits  of  the  carnal  malefactors 
"hurtled"  by  the  infernal  hurricane,  the  sleet  and 
snow,  the  foam  and  spray,  are  whirled  by  these 
winter  winds.  As  fiercely  they  are  hurled  back 
again  and  again  from  the  face  of  the  northern 
walls. 

Tonight  the  wind  roars.  What  care  I?  The 
louder  the  rumble  in  the  spacious  chimney,  the 
brighter  will  burn  my  drift-wood  fire.  One  must 
oppose  his  resources  of  mind  to  the  blind  anger  of 
nature,  and  trust  in  the  end  to  prevail.  What  to 
me,  in  this  comfortable  room,  if  the  wind  grows 
furious  in  its  strength,  and  beats  and  clamors  at 
window  and  door?  No  sail,  I  know,  is  oat  on  this 
winter  sea.  What  if  the  waves  boom  by  the 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  27 

Northern  Cliff,  if  the  wind  veer  again  and  drive 
the  foam  far  up  the  sands  of  the  little  bay?  There 
will  be  no  need  to  hang  out  the  signal  lamp.  The 
Inland  Sea  and  the  bleak,  inhospitable  season, 
will  keep  both  my  island  and  myself  in  unbroken 
ostracism.  The  sleet  and  the  hail  may  lash 
against  the  window-panes,  but  it  is  only  such  as 
might  have  been  foreseen.  There  must  pass 
many  and  many  a  day  ere  the  yacht  will  put 
forth.  So  stir  the  embers  of  the  smoldering  fire ; 
let  the  red  sparks  fly,  remember  that  thy  food  is 
safe-cached,  and  that  the  hut  is  firm-planted  and 
strong  as  the  gale. 


BOOKS  AND  A  RAVEN. 


II 

BOOKS  AND  A  RAVEN. 

AND  while  I  rest  here,  a  center  of  gravity  in 
the  midst  of  chaos;  while  I  wonder,  by 
the   simple   exercise  of   my   Homestead 
Right,  what  act  I  have  done,  here,  also,  are  the 
World,  the  Flesh  and— the  Devil. 

What  is  a  hermit  if  he  lacks  a  devil?  Pagan  or 
Christian,  cynic  or  saint,  what  ever  he  be,  must 
not  the  hermit  possess  his  familiar?  Apropos, 
then,  I  consider  this  comer. 

He  is  huge,  he  is  ancient  of  days.  In  breadth 
of  wing,  Devil  spreads  a  full  three  inches  beyond 

31 


32  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

that  four  feet  six,  which  is  supposed  to  limit  the 
growth  of  his  kind.  He  is  crafty,  he  is  lame,  he  is 
blind  of  an  eye.  He  is  black  as  ebon.  He  is  a 
prying,  leering,  selfish  creature.  He  has  come, 
self-invited,  to  share  my  lot.  Probably  he  for- 
aged over  this  region,  before  my  grand,  my  great 
grandsire,  was  in  his  cradle.  If  this  one  of  end- 
less effrontery  and  sidelong  gait,  be  not  the 
Father  of  Lies  himself,  then,  perhaps,  he  is  the 
oldest  progenitor  of  the  western  ravens. 

Who  wounded  the  bird?  It  is  impossible  for 
me  to  tell.  While  we  reversed  the  roles  of  Elijah, 
and  the  ravens  of  the  wilderness,  he  snapped  at 
the  hand  that  fed  him.  What  cares  Devil  that  I 
saved  him  from  teeth  and  claws?  That  I  came  to 
his  aid  on  that  bleak  winter  day  whilst,  with 
broken  and  trailing  wing,  he  was  being  worried 
by  the  dogs  and  traced  bloody  foot-marks  on  the 
December  snow?  Now  he  is  feared  by  the  brutes. 
Devil  makes  the  most  of  this  fact,  for  revenge  is 
probably  a  virtue  with  devils,  even  if  they  forget 
to  be  grateful. 

Perhaps  his  rescue  was  a  sad  mistake.     The 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  33 

raven's  wounds,  it  may  be,  were  but  a  trick.  That 
twinkle  in  his  eye  means  much.  But,  no,  he  shall 
not  pick  out  these  eyes  of  mine.  He  may  hope 
to  catch  me  some  day  as  the  demon  would  have 
caught  the  Theban  of  old.  Yet  this  wild  was  not 
sought  by  me  that  I  might  escape  the  sex.  Devil 
may  eye  my  nude  as  he  will,  and  I  will  laugh  at 
old  Burton  and  his  Anatomy  of  Melancholy.  Yet 
this  is  the  unfriendliness  rather  than  the  sweets 
of  seclusion.  Whatever  mischief  the  bird  may 
have  in  his  head  remains  to  be  seen. 

Be  this,  however,  placed  to  the  raven's  ac- 
count. He  is  not  without  his  merits.  Roam  as 
he  will  by  day,  he  returns  to  his  home  at  night. 
Always  the  set  of  sun  sees  him  approaching  the 
hut.  "For  Devils  Only."  From  the  Middle  Ages, 
I  have  taken  a  hint — for  the  raven  I  have  made 
a  door  of  his  own.  In  the  morning  hours  the 
mood  of  the  bird  is  frolicsome ;  at  noon  he  is  keen 
and  has  paid  at  least  one  visit  to  each  of  his  hid- 
den stores.  At  twilight  he  resents  all  familiarity 
of  man  or  beast,  and  at  night,  if  disturbed,  then 
Devil  is  a  devil  indeed. 


34  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

For  a  Homesteader,  these  are  peculiar,  almost 
incongruous  surroundings.  The  hut  is  rough  on 
the  outside  but  is  bright  and  cozy  within.  In  self- 
banishment,  this  follower  of  Adam's  trade  has 
kept  his  household  gods  around  him.  In  this 
room  there  is  that  to  both  please  the  eye  and  to 
feed  the  mind.  Austere  thought  is  forced  upon 
one  by  the  austerity  of  these  rigid  scenes.  Sack- 
cloth and  ashes  rules  not  in  the  hut,  yet  no  place 
is  this  island  for  a  Castle  of  Indolence.  The  great 
German  was  right.  One  needs  a  focal  point  of 
contrast.  Amid  the  barrenness  of  this  desert  wild, 
the  soul  has  need  of  a  gentler  touch.  Were  not 
the  influence  of  nature  corrected,  the  tendency 
here  would  be  toward  harshness  of  mind.  One 
needs  the  complex — food  for  the  desires  put  into 
the  blood  and  brain  by  thousands  of  years  of  civ- 
ilization. 

A  bed — a  bunk,  I  should  say ;  shelving ;  a  table ; 
a  rack — formed  from  the  skull  of  a  mountain 
sheep,  with  curved  and  massive  horns; — a  bin, 
and  the  means  for  cooking,  these  are  part  of  my 
goods.  On  the  other  hand  is  my  easel.  In  its 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  35 

dark  mahogany  case,  the  piano  stands.  There  is 
a  statuette  by  Danneker — Ariadne — and  a  Nav- 
ajo  blanket  of  quaint  design  keeps  from  dust  and 
grime  my  allotment  of  books.  On  the  wall  there 
is  a  plate  after  Titian — Sacred  and  Profane  Love 
— a  portrait  with  autograph  attached,  of  a  famous 
modern  beauty,  and  over  all,  "a  chain-dropp'd 
lamp"  sheds  a  mellow  ray. 

Hermits  the  world  over  must  live  to  a  purpose. 
Thoreau,  at  Walden  Pond,  tried  a  social  experi- 
ment. Forbes  watched  the  flow  of  an  alpine 
glacier;  from  mistrust  of  mankind,  Timon  of 
Athens  dwelt  in  a  cave ;  for  love,  Petrarch  sought 
the  quiet  of  Vacluse,  and  to  fast  and  pray,  St. 
Godric  lived  in  the  Fens,  and  St.  Berach  on  Ork- 
ney Isle.  No  gold  lies  buried  in  these  sands,  at 
some  future  day  no  bell  or  crozier  will  be  found 
near  my  hut.  But  I  have  my  purpose,  I  know 
my  place  on  the  soil. 

To  be  of  use,  to  redeem  the  barren  waste,  to 
make  sure  in  the  future  my  daily  bread:  these  are 
among  my  desires.  Possession  always  gives  a 
certain  amount  of  contented  pride,  and  over  my 


36  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

desert  acreage,  whereon  the  vine  may  yet  grow,  I 
look  as  fondly  as  does  ever  the  family  inheritor 
of  broad  estates.  I  come  here  not  to  practice  re- 
nunciation, but  to  begin  a  life  anew. 

Lo,the  demi-lion  rampant,  the  ship's  rudder, 
of  which  one  was  proud — 

"That  23ar,  this  bend,  that  FESS,  this  Cheveron." 

Even  among  these  democratic  rocks,  though  he 
were  Boone,  one  may  proudly  recall  the  land  of 
his  birth.  With  newness  of  action,  one  need  not 
forget  the  ancestors'  thought.  Why  regret  the 
Hall,  the  Manor,  the  Hamlet,  that  Titheing,  that 
parish,  that  chepping,  the  bridge,  the  stream,  the 
vale,  whose  name  one  bears?  Why  regret  the  es- 
tate in  Essex  or  Berkshire?  Or  the  lands  by  the 
Cornish  Sea?  There  are  other  holdings  than 
those  at  Donnington,  or  those  at  the  Saxon 
Camp,  on  the  downs  by  White-Horse  Hill. 

"Rather  use  than  fame,"  Merlin's  motto  will 
serve.  If  coat-of-arms  the  Homesteader's  chil- 
dren should  need,  then  let  it  be  this:  On  a  field 
azure,  an  island,  or;  in  the  middle  chief,  the  gull, 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  37 

argent;  on  the  base,  a  pruning-hook,  sable,  and, 
as  tresson — flory  and  counter-flory — the  grape, 
vert  and  gules. 

But  with  new  thought  let  the  transplanted 
branch  do  honor  to  the  ancestral  tree.  In  the 
veins  of  the  Homesteader's  children  may  flow  the 
blood  of  Knights  and  Vikings. 

I  turn  to  my  books.  What  a  comfort  they  are 
in  a  place  like  this.  Here  one  may  still  have  his 
friends  around  him.  There  they  stand,  the  glor- 
ious company;  silent,  it  is  true,  but  ever  ready  to 
teach  or  amuse.  In  life,  some  of  those  who  stand 
there  so  calmly,  were  unknown  to  each  other,  or 
they  lived,  perhaps,  as  enemies.  But  now  they 
are  friendly  enough.  There  are  "the  true  peace 
society — heretic  and  orthodox."  Side  by  side, 
they  keep  truce  in  their  work  of  ministry.  Some 
of  those  great  ones  wrought  in  solitude;  some 
achieved  their  work  amid  the  plaudits  of  an  ad- 
miring world.  Others,  though  they  may  have 
known  it  not,  nor  guessed  what  lay  in  the  course 
of  time — centuries,  customs,  evolutions,  holding 


38  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

them  apart — seem  destined  now  to  be  linked  as 
twin  stars,  or  to  shine  in  clusters,  as  Dante  has 
grouped  them  in  the  world  of  shades. 

Who  can  tell  where  the  written  words  shall 
be  read?  A  singular  place,  this  lonely  and  des- 
olate rock,  in  which  to  pursue  the  thoughts  of  the 
men  who  once  trod  the  classic  vales  of  Hellas,  or 
to  follow  the  lines  of  those  who  graced  the  court 
of  Queen  Bess !  Within  reach  of  my  hand  are  the 
best  productions  of  the  human  mind — the  work 
of  the  individual  condensing  the  thought  of  the 
race.  Of  what  august  times  they  make  one  a  citi- 
zen! I  have  to  but  stretch  forth  my  arm  to  an- 
nihilate space  and  to  roll  back  the  ages.  Those  of 
the  Book,  ^schylus,  Euripides,  Musaeus,  .ffisop, 
the  blind  old  man  of  Scios,  and  the  voices  of  the 
other  immortals,  I  hear. 

On  the  table  lie  a  few  de  lux.  There  are  the 
Decameron;  the  Lyrics — Beranger, — the  Kele- 
vala,  Herrick's  Hesperides  and  Noble  Numbers, 
the  Siegfried's  Saga  of  Tegner,  and  Walt  Whit- 
man's Leaves  of  Grass. 

And  among  them  at  the  moment,  like  pilgrims 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  39 

who  have  lost  their  way,  Architecture  of  the 
Heavens,  by  Nichol,  and  Lives  of  the  most  emi- 
nent Painters  and  Sculptors  of  the  Order  of  St. 
Dominic. 

Yes,  I  turn  to  my  books.  There,  for  my  mood, 
are  Caesar  and  Kepler,  Gladstone,  Webster  and 
Paine.  There  are  Don  Quixote  and  the  story  of 
Faust.  From  Odyssey  and  Iliad,  from  the  Roman 
.ZEnead,  I  can  turn  to  Shakespeare  and  the  Med- 
iaeval Song.  When  wearied  by  the  great  Ver- 
alum,  there  is  the  bright  Montaine.  There  are 
Josephus  and  Augustine,  Rabelais  and  Swift. 
When  too  much  moved  by  the  thought  of  Omar, 
the  passion  of  Poe,  there  are  the  laughing  mor- 
alities of  Ingoldsby  Legends.  But,  as  with  Bar- 
ham,  I  am  best  pleased  in  the  end  with  the  sol- 
emn tones  of  the  "As  I  Laye — A  Thinkynge,"  so 
at  last,  with  Hood,  I  leave  the  mirthful  or  caus- 
tic satire,  to  follow  the  bitter  pathos  of  "The 
Bridge  of  Sighs,"  or  the  self-probing  stanzas  of 
"The  Haunted  House." 

Of  spectres,  however,  the  Inland  Sea  has  one 
of  its  own.  Not  one  self-conjured,  but  one  ah 


40  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

extra.  It  is  the  grave-digger  Jean  Baptiste. 
Branded  and  shackled,  the  man,  himself,  was 
once  kept,  a  solitary  prisoner,  on  one  of  these 
neighboring  islands.  He  attempted  escape.  By 
one  of  the  river  mouths,  a  skeleton  was  lately 
exhumed — a  fetter  and  a  link  of  chain  were  still 
on  his  ankle  bone.  It  was  the  remains  of  Jean 
Baptiste.  He  had  met  his  death  by  drowning. 


WILD  AND  WINDY  MARCH. 


III 

WILD  AND  WINDY  MARCH. 

PRESTO!     The  island  is  changed.     This 
might  be  the  work  of  an  enchanter's  wand. 
For  many  days  mankind  and  I  have  been 
strangers,  but,  lo !  society  has  come  to  my  door. 
This  rock  once  so  desert  has  become  a  hive.    The 
gloomy  season  is  ended.    I  am  lost  in  news  of  the 
world.    Though  welcome  at  this  ultima  Thule  is 
the  turn  of  the  year,  more  welcome  indeed  are 
these  human  voices. 

There  is  a  plenitude  of  shipping.      Never  be- 
43 


44  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

fore  has  this  port  seen  the  like.  In  addition  to 
the  yacht,  which  arrived  this  noon-day  with  a  wet 
deck  and  a  tired  crew,  a  fifty-foot  schooner  rides 
out  in  the  bay.  Another  craft,  too,  is  anchored 
close  by,  and  to  complete  the  surprise,  besides 
these  strange  boats,  a  little  sloop  has  parted  her 
cable  and  lies  half-wrecked  on  the  island  sands. 
Dragged  up  the  beach,  alongside  of  my  Hope,  is 
her  broken  yawl. 

Suddenly  this  island  has  become  important. 
Short  the  time,  since  for  the  asking  alone,  the 
place  had  been  mine.  Now,  as  if  it  had  become 
an  actual  beehive,  a  monster  and  animated  em- 
blem of  the  state,  Science,  Commerce,  Agricul- 
ture, Education, "Ars  Milttans,"  I  might  add, 
are  contending  for  it.  Uncared  for  these  thou- 
sands of  years,  no  sooner  would  I  call  this  Home, 
than  there  comes  this  change.  So  many  the 
changes,  that  I  scarcely  have  time  to  note  them. 

Here  is  the  case :  the  corporation,  with  its  mil- 
lions of  dollars,  the  private  company,  the  indi- 
vidual, the  state,  each  makes  a  claim.  There  have 
been  Government  surveys,  railroad  section  sur- 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  45 

veys,  local  company  and  private  surveys.  There 
have  been  issued  a  Government  Grant,  the  Des- 
ert Entry,  the  Homestead  Entry,  and  the  Mineral 
Claim.  A  coveted  prize  this  island  must  certainly 
be. 

Never  before  have  such  diverse  accents  of 
tongue  fallen  on  these  gray,  old  stones.  Amer- 
ica, the  United  Kingdom,  Scandinavia,  the  Land 
of  the  Teuton — these  send  their  number.  Here 
we  see  that  sudden  progress  that  roots  up  pri- 
meval trees  to  make  place  for  the  school-house, 
or  even  a  gallery  of  art.  Commerce,  while  I  ter- 
race my  slopes  and  watch  my  vines,  will  sweep 
with  its  besom  these  nested  rocks.  Out  yonder 
the  workman,  busy  with  pick  and  shovel,  with 
tripod  and  line,  all  proclaim  a  desire.  The  ques- 
tion is — for  what? 

From  this  time  on,  my  hermitage  will  be  of  a 
temperate  kind.  The  new-comers — the  perma- 
nent ones — and  I,  will  live  on  most  friendly 
terms.  Not  a  hundred  rods  from  my  own,  the 
sifters  have  made  for  themselves  a  home.  It  is 


46  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

long  and  narrow,  and  is  built  of  rounded  slabs. 
Within  this  cabin,  the  piled-up  sacks  of  flour,  the 
bags  of  beans,  the  boxes  of  candles,  the  flitches  of 
bacon  that  hang  from  the  beams,  the  pots,  pans 
and  kettles,  as  well  as  the  many  aids  and  imple- 
ments of  labor,  indicate  that  the  men  will  make 
a  protracted  stay. 

In  more  ways  than  one,  I  am  pleased  with  my 
new  companions.  Mutual  esteem  and  confidence, 
or  a  dislike  amounting  even  to  animosity,  one  or 
the  other,  must  be  our  attitude.  Among  a  num- 
ber of  men  thus  thrown  together,  there  is  hardly 
room  for  indifference.  Here  the  Divine  Right  of 
Kings,  as  it  were,  and  the  Vox  populi,  are,  in  a 
way,  united.  We  are  here  to  fight  this  wild  na- 
ture or  to  be  assisted  by  it.  We  are  here  to  de- 
rive the  benefit  given  by  co-operation,  or  assert 
our  individuality.  We  may  gather  strength  from 
such  of  the  past  as  we  can  assimilate  to  our  time 
and  environments  and  can  reject  the  other.  We 
hope  to  rise  superior  to  the  mistakes  of  a  bygone 
age,  and  to  assert  ourselves  as  men.  "The  arts 
which  flourish,"  says  Bacon,  "when  virtue  is  in 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  47 

the  ascendant,  are  military;  when  virtue  is  in 
state,  are  liberal,  and  when  virtue  is  in  decline  are 
voluptuous."  Judged  by  these  obvious  truths — 
of  the  past  at  least — the  island  now  presents  a 
paradox.  Here  we  have  a  state,  a  common- 
wealth, or  whatever  we  may  choose  to  call  it,  in 
which  are  exhibited  the  three  stages  of  virtue, 
not  separate  and  alone,  but  working  in  concert. 
Those  latest  comers,  both  the  sifters  and  I,  al- 
though we  come  here  with  widely  divergent 
thought,  are  alike  in  this — we  represent  the  time. 

Human  beings  are  but  figures  to  the  landscape 
painter.  Often  from  that  standpoint — as  a 
sketcher — I  look  at  these  men.  Man  was  needed 
to  give  human  interest  to  these  waves  and  stones, 
and  now  he  is  here.  This  island,  as  it  existed  in 
solitude,  was  complete.  It  was  in  its  way  a  per- 
fect thing.  Now  that  former  completeness  is 
broken  and  gone,  and  there  is  that  process  going 
forward  by  which  a  new  one  will  take  its  place. 
The  figures,  the  sifters,  accentuate  these  island 
scenes.  That  is,  they  do  so  through  suggestion. 


48  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

They  are  as  much  in  harmony,  too,  with  these 
bird-haunted  rocks,  as  are  the  samphire-gather- 
ers to  the  old  world  cliffs.  Emphasis  they  give 
to  these  scenes,  such  as  the  landscape  painter 
ioves. 

Take  the  present  moment :  The  storm  of  the 
Vernal  Equinox  which  tore  the  sloop  from  her 
fastenings  and  still  strews  the  beach  with  huge 
globes  of  foam,  has  partially  cleared.  Three  of 
the  sifters  are  engaged  in  the  task  of  passing 
guano-dust  through  sieves,  and  putting  it  into 
sacks,  whilst  others  dig  among  the  ancient  bird- 
deposits.  Leaning  against  the  wild  March  wind, 
their  rustic  clothing  flapping  in  as  wild  disorder, 
and  a  cloud  of  brown,  snuff-like  mineral  hovering 
around  them,  or  being  carried  by  the  fitful  gusts, 
far  beyond  the  sieves,  the  men  make  extremely 
picturesque  figures.  One  of  the  sifters  will  dwell 
here  permanently,  and  I  expect  to  put  him  into 
many  a  sketch.  He  is  a  Hercules  in  strength  and 
of  brawny  stature.  He  moves  from  place  to  place 
all  unconscious,  as  of  course  uncaring,  of  his  pic- 
torial value  to  me.  In  spite  of  the  season,  and 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  49 

the  kind  of  day,  his  head  is  bared  to  sun  and 
wind ;  his  feet  are  encased  in  coarse,  brown  sack- 
ing, and,  as  I  write,  he  is,  with  that  exception, 
naked.  He  is  carrying  a  plank  to  two  of  his  fel- 
low laborers,  and  these  latter  men  are  at  work 
on  the  recently  stranded  boat.  The  man's  yellow 
hair,  his  ruddy  flesh-tints,  his  athletic  form,  focus 
a  natural  picture  in  which  the  broken  sloop,  the 
big,  black  schooner,  the  white  hull  of  the  yacht, 
the  blue  waters  of  the  Inland  Sea,  the  warm, 
gray  tones  of  the  island  cliffs,  with  the  reeling 
clouds  above  them,  are  the  splendid  components. 
Only  to  realize  the  effects  of  this  momentary 
scene  upon  the  beholder,  he  who  describes  it, 
must  not  omit  the  sounds.  Besides  the  wild 
noise  of  the  wind  and  waves,  there  is  the  clatter- 
ing of  hammers  made  by  the  workmen  over-haul- 
ing the  wreck.  Devil  makes  himself  heard,  the 
dogs  yelp,  and  these  united  noises  bring  shrill, 
harsh,  cries  from  the  island  birds.  These  are  an- 
swered by  a  loud  and  indignant  cackle  from  the 
sifters'  score  and  two  of  newly-brought  and  as- 
tonished barn-yard  fowls. 


REDEEMING  THE  WASTE 


IV 
REDEEMING  THE  WASTE. 

WHAT  a  surprise  it  might  be  to  us,  could 
we  but  sometimes  read  the  thoughts  of 
our  fellow  men.  Stranger  than  that,  it 
may  be,  could  one  but  know  the  impression 
wrought  upon  the  comprehensions  of  the  lower 
animals.  Cosmopolitan,  surely,  is  the  group  of 
men  that  is  here — but  the  other  life?  Among  the 
sifters,  one  is  a  Pole  and  another  a  Russian.  One 
of  the  Englishmen  has  sailed  on  St.  George's 
Channel,  and  been  to  the  guano-islands  off  the 
Coast  of  Brazil.  One  has  doubled  the  Capes,  and 
crossed  the  waves  of  the  German  Ocean,  and  still 
another  has  seen  the  palms  of  the  Hawaiian  Isl- 

53 


54  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

ands,  and  the  smoking  crater  of  Mauna  Loa.  And 
this  is  besides  a  Scotchman  who  talks  of  the  Med- 
iterranean as  well  as  of  Arthur's  Seat.  There  is 
my  man,  too,  "the  Drudge."  He  has  watched  for 
weary  months  on  the  mountain  tops.  The  im- 
pression made  by  these  men  upon  each  other 
must  be  varied  indeed.  But  more  varied  it  must 
be  among  the  animals. 

But  what  thought  Devil?  It  has  been  but  an 
armed  truce,  as  it  were,  that  has  existed  these 
months  between  the  bird  and  my  dogs.  The  raven 
has  been  ever  alert,  nor  are  the  dogs  at  their  ease 
in  the  presence  of  Devil.  With  an  air  of  suspi- 
cion, he  looked  askance  at  the  new  arrivals.  The 
domestic  fowls,  in  their  turn,  received  an  impres- 
sion. Whatever  that  impression  was,  it  taught 
them,  at  least,  a  profound  respect  for  the  raven. 

The  sifters  are  prompt.  Already  the  pits  and 
trenches,  the  numerous  outworks  make  their  part 
of  the  island  appear  like  a  fortified  camp.  "Veni, 
vidi,  vici!"  as  one  voice  they  might  exclaim. 
As  for  me,  although  a  believer  with  Socrates,  "a 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  55 

man  may  live  in  a  cabbage-garden  and  dream  of 
Paradise,"  better  would  it  be  for  me  could  I  make 
the  boast  of  the  Roman.* 

See  how  it  stands.  It  is  easier  to  gather  than  it 
is  to  create.  The  sifters,  wise  men,  profit  them- 
selves by  things  of  the  past ;  while  my  reward,  if 
any,  is  to  be  the  result  of  things  to  be.  I  repre- 
sent the  material  side  of  things,  also.  But  with  a 
difference.  "Circumstances  and  the  animal  wants 
of  man,"  are  represented  by  my  labors  on  the  soil. 
But  there  is  the  higher  purpose. 

My  vineyard  follows  the  island  lines.  It  is  high 
above  the  present  beach.  I  have  taken  advantage 
of  the  narrow  flats,  those  that  mark  a  pause  in 
the  shrinkage  of  ancient  Bonneville.  On  the 
nearest  slope  and  along  the  flats,  the  posts  and 
trellis  stand.  Here  are  stones  enough  and  to 

*I  still  call  the  island  mine,  although,  strictly  speaking, 
I  should  but  claim  a  portion.  Of  a  total  area  of  155.06 
acres,  my  Homestead  Entry  covered  78.35  acres,  the  re- 
maining part  being  divided  between  a  railway  grant  and 
a  State  School  Section.  The  Northern  part  of  the  isl- 
and— mine — is  the  one  that  is  grand  with  cliff  and  bay. 
The  State  School  Section — 7.50  acres,  comprise  a  low 
promontory;  great  blocks  of  stone  and  wave-washed 
boulders. 


56  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

spare,  and  of  these  I  have  built  my  retaining 
walls.  The  August  sun  will  bake  these  rocks, 
and,  as  I  have  already  seen,  the  snows  of  winter 
drift  over  them.  But  I  shall  see  more.  Grapes, 
most  excellent  grapes,  have  been  grown  on  yon- 
der mainland.  Like  the  blast  of  a  trumpet  may 
sound  the  wind;  it  may  howl  round  my  hut,  but 
so,  I  know,  it  does  there.  There  the  trellis  is 
built  and  there  the  vine  is  set.  Over  that  alluvial 
soil,  the  grapes  have  hung  thick.  While  from 
season  to  season,  the  blue-furred  berries  of  the 
native  dwarf,  ripened  amid  its  prickly  leaves,  the 
alien  plants  grew  big  and  strong.  Would  that 
these  cuttings  might  do  as  well. 

Let  me  profit  by  the  wisdom  of  others.  This 
may  be  a  question  of  will.  Then  let  me  endure. 
Perhaps  this  is  a  game  of  patience,  and  my  part  is 
but  to  watch  and  to  wait.  A  work  of  redemption 
is  a  work  that  proves  slow,  yet  did  one  but  know 
that  labor  must  always  meet  with  its  sure  success 
then  what  brave  thoughts  we  might  have  of  the 
future.  As  to  whether  one  shall  play  a  part  in 
the  beginning  or  ending  of  empire,  a  thousand 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  57 

miles  of  distance  may  be  the  same  as  a  thousand 
years  of  time.  A  Homesteader's  vines,  like  a 
Homesteader's  heart,  must  be  filled  with  cour- 
age. 

From  many  lands,  then,  have  come  these  men. 
And  from  many  lands  have  come  my  vines.  In 
the  widest  meaning,  this  guano-dust  is  scattered 
to  the  winds  of  heaven,  but  long  will  it  be  before 
my  vineyard  shall  be  accomplished.  My  plants 
are  here  to  take  root  in  an  untried  soil,  and  to 
brave  the  rigors  of  this  island  climate.  Some- 
what lost  the  transplanted  vines  must  feel ;  exiles 
without  hope  of  return.  For  these  vines  it  must 
be  victory  or  it  must  be  death. 

From  my  father  I  have  inherited  these — a  love 
for  an  island  and  a  love  for  the  vine.  Two  good 
reasons,  it  appears  to  me,  why,  in  the  present 
venture,  I  may  hope  to  succeed. 

Perhaps  one  may  possess  a  genius  for  the  rais- 
ing of  vines  and  the  making  of  wine.  •  If  so,  then 
I  think  that  my  father  possessed  that  genius.  On 
a  plot  containing  one  hundred  square  rods  of 
ground,  the  variety  and  weight  of  grapes  that  he 


58  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

brought  to  perfection,  was  quite  remarkable.  He 
conquered  into  a  generous  wine  the  juice  of  the 
wild  grape,  and  here,  I  think,  would  have  forced 
this  soil  to  his  will  and  triumphed  where  I  may 
fail. 

Water  must  be  made  to  bubble  from  amid 
these  stones.  Without  water  where  is  my  chance 
of  success?  Water,  water,  or  poor  standings  my 
grapes  will  be!  O  for  the  smallest  stream,  the 
most  unnoticed  rivulet  on  yonder  Wasatch! 
With  the  means  of  irrigation,  my  task  which  will 
be  so  difficult,  would  be  made  quite  easy.  Salt 
and  draught  are  my  vineyard's  foes,  and  to  keep 
alive  the  vines  which  my  hand  has  planted,  how 
many  gallons  of  water  has  been  carried  from  the 
rain-filled  tanks?  To  assure  a  continuance  of  life 
in  these  now  healthy  plants,  I  must  probe  into 
the  earth. 

Currents  of  fresh  water  continue  to  flow,  it  is 
believed,  under  the  hardpan  beneath  this  sea. 
Can  I  reach  one  of  those?  There  is  a  flowing 
well  on  Fremont  Island,  and  a  natural  spring  on 
Church.  But  the  latter  island  is  high  and  the 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  59 

water  seeps  from  its  hills.    I  know  not  yet  what 
lies  beneath  these  rocks. 

As  bread  cast  upon  the  waters,  I  have  planted 
these  vines.  May  these  rocks  yet  be  christened 
with  their  own  yielding  of  wine;  may  they  re- 
spond in  echo,  to  the  laughter  of  woman  and 
children !  Can  the  will  accomplish — then  it  shall 
be  so. 


SNOW- WAVES  AND  FLOWERS. 


SNOW- WAVES  AND  FLOWERS. 

THE  Hanging  Gardens  are  in  my  thought. 
As  did  the  work  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  my 
vineyard  has  resulted  from  love.     Unlike 
the  Median  queen,  however,  one  need  not  here 
sigh  for  a  glimpse  of  the  wooded  hills.    Soon,  on 
yonder  heights,  will  be  hanging-gardens  of  na- 
ture's own.    I  trust,  too,  that  not  through  pride, 
shall  I  be  brought  to  the  eating  of  grass  as  was 
the  great  Chaldaen  King. 

St.  Augustine  enjoyed  his  laugh.  The  learned 
confessor  showed  that  over  two  hundred  deities 
—of  Pagan  mythology — would  be  necessary  to 

63 


64  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

the  creation  of  a  flower.  He  describes,  too,  eleven 
gods  or  goddesses  who  presided  over  the  birth  of 
corn.  How  many  of  the  Pagan  gods,  then,  were 
necessary  to  the  growth  of  the  vine? 

"Behold  a  sower  went  forth  to  sow;"  "And 
now  also  the  axe  shall  be  laid  at  the  roots  of  the 
tree,"  "Those  who  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships." 
Unexpectedly,  by  the  sloop's  mishap,  I  look  upon 
one  of  those  scriptural  subjects  to  sketch.  Two, 
however,  of  those  distinctive  happenings  of 
March,  I  shall  not  witness — the  felling  of  tim- 
ber, the  sowing  of  the  soil.  I  may  exercise  a 
faith  in  the  setting  of  vines,  but  here  no  tree 
makes  ready  to  burst  into  leaf;  in  this  rocky  soil 
reposes  no  seed  of  food-bearing  grasses.  Skirt 
my  island  as  often  as  I  will,  I  shall  not  look  on 
such  things  as  these.  Let  the  winds  of  the  Vernal 
Equinox  drive  the  waves  never  so  fiercely,  they 
but  leave  bare  these  rocks  and  sands  without 
casting  up  either  weed  or  shell,  or  ever  those 
heaps  of  kemp  and  tangle  so  dear,  elsewhere,  to 
the  sketcher's  eye. 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  65 

Spring  on  these  western  plateaus,  should  be 
personified  with  a  stalwart  figure.  A  handsome 
youth,  a  red  Sigurd,  perhaps,  such  as  I  conceive 
to  have  been  the  aboriginal  thought.  I  cannot 
imagine  a  Flora  coming  across  these  heights. 
Never  among  the  Wasatch  snows,  do  I  picture 
the  shivering  nudity  of  some  mountain  flower- 
goddess.  Spring,  as  it  moves  northward  across 
the  island  meridian,  does  it  find  more  unlikely 
soil?  Upon  the  face  of  this  broad  land,  is  there 
another  place  more  stubborn  to  resist  its  benefi- 
cent influence? 

Carrion  of  some  kind  has  drifted  ashore.  On 
the  lesser  "Cub,"  Devil,  with  his  kin,  is  busy 
about  it.  His  cousins,  the  crows,  too,  are  making 
their  claim.  But  what  of  the  spring?  Spring- 
time is  shown  in  the  countless  white  wings  of 
the  nest-seeking  gulls. 

"A  continuous  residence,  with  the  right  of 
leaving  for  business  or  visiting ;  not  for  labor  or 
hiring  out."  The  latter  clause,  in  the  Rules  for 
the  Homesteader's  Guidance,  I  have  not  broken, 


66  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

nor  of  the  first  have  I  taken  advantage.  Being 
wingless,  I  cannot  pass  and  repass,  as  do  the 
gulls.  The  birds,  however,  live  a  life  of  unre- 
straint. I  ever  see  them  depart  from  the  island 
shores,  and  return  again,  in  a  swift,  unwearied 
flight. 

Here  the  gull  has  nested  for  ages.  Of  the  In- 
land Sea,  this  is  the  most  picturesque  island,  and 
there  is  not  another  within  its  bounds  whose 
somber  features  are  so  enlivened  with  a  multi- 
tude of  noisy  life.  In  the  season  this  is  the  nest- 
ing ground,  and  the  bays  are  then  inhabited  by 
crowds  of  screaming  sea-fowl.  The  island,  too, 
was  the  home  of  pelican  and  heron,  but  perhaps 
the  presence  of  man  will  now  keep  these  shy 
birds  away.  On  the  top  of  the  Sarcobatus  bushes 
stand  huge  and  deserted  nests.  These  once  be- 
longed to  the  herons,  and,  where  the  waters  of 
East  and  West  Bays  suddenly  shallow  upon  a 
half-circle  beach  of  oolitic  sand,  the  homes  of  the 
pelicans  were  made.  Upon  Hat  Island,  a  satellite 
of  Carrington,  the  broad-winged  birds  are  con- 
gregated by  the  scores  and  hundreds.  They  have 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  67 

found  a  new  place  of  abode ;  but  not  so  the  gulls. 
Now  that  man  has  come  the  smaller  but  more 
valiant  birds  appear  little  disposed  as  formerly  to 
give  up  their  natural  rights. 

In  the  village  orchards,  the  trees — the  peach, 
the  plum,  the  apple  and  the  pear — are  covering 
their  branches  with  clouds  of  predictive  bloom, 
and  there  the  island  gulls  are  disputing  with  the 
blackbirds  for  spoil  in  the  wake  of  the  plow. 

On  yonder  heights  how  beauteous  will  be  the 
season's  prime !  There  will  be  great  star-dashes, 
circles,  and  wavering  belts  of  brilliant  flowers- 
All  the  orders  of  the  mountain  flowers  will  be 
there.  The  heights  will  know  Ranunculus,  Sax- 
ifraga,  Primula,  Rosacae,  Felices  and  Lycopodi- 
aceae.  Along  the  bench-land  of  old  Lake  Bonne- 
ville  will  open  the  spotted  Sego,  and  that  great, 
white  primrose  which  the  unlettered  call  the 
mountain-lily.  On  the  Wasatch  will  be  troops  of 
Pentstemons,  the  Mimulus,  Phlox,  Aconite,  Col- 
umbines, Asters,  geraniums,  forget-me-nots, 
Merthentias.  There  also  will  be  Pedicularis,  the 


68  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

stone-crop,  Clematis  and  wall-flower.  There 
will  be  orchids,  Ivesia.  By  the  well-heads  of  the 
stream  will  grow  Parry's  Primula,  the  shooting- 
star,  and  a  million  buttercups  will  carpet  the  un- 
even ground. 

On  my  island,  what?  Nature  appears  to  be 
just  as  content,  just  as  busy,  drifting  these  sands, 
and  so  changing  the  shapes  of  the  dunes,  as  she 
does  to  bring  forth  the  endless  forms  of  verdure. 
My  vines  will  sprout,  I  hope ;  a  cactus  or  two  will 
unfold  their  fleshy  blossoms;  the  moss  and  lich- 
ens may  take  on  a  brighter  hue.  While  the 
changing  waves  of  flowers  follow  the  ebbing 
waves  of  upper  snows,  the  island  Artemesia  will 
throw  out  new  shoots ;  the  grease-wood  and  thorn 
will  thrust  out  spiky  leaves,  the  salt-weed  come 
up  by  the  shore,  the  apoloptus  tufts  will  mark 
each  line  of  crevice,  and  the  bunch-grass  green 
for  a  while  the  slant  of  the  cliffs.  Here  also  may 
be  a  thistle  or  two ;  the  serrated  disc  of  a  desert 
primrose,  and  I  may  see,  perchance,  some  hith- 
erto unknown,  some  pungent  smelling  and  name- 
less flower.  Hardly  enough  this,  when  one  re- 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  69 

members  the  exuberance  of  the  season  else- 
where, and  longs  to  witness  once  more,  the  full 
miracle  of  the  spring's  return. 

Yet  I  have  compensations.  Would  I  have 
come,  and  would  I  remain  here,  did  I  not  know 
that  such  would  be  given?  I  shall  see  the  great 
phenomena  of  nature,  although  their  manifesta- 
tions may  be  affected  by  local  conditions.  In  the 
clear,  dry  air  above  the  Inland  Sea,  the  vast 
white  cone  of  the  Zodiacal  light  streams  up  over 
my  island  cliffs  at  twilight,  far  more  brilliantly 
than  I  have  seen  it  elsewhere.  Like  a  wondrous 
torch,  Venus  burns  amid  the  fading  glow,  and, 
unobscured  by  fog  or  mist,  Orion,  in  golden 
splendor,  sinks  beyond  the  edge  of  the  solitary 
desert. 

We  all  know  of  the  false  dawn.  It  is  seen 
more  fully  in  the  lands  of  the  East.  Here,  at  the 
coming  of  March,  was  that  delusive  appearance 
which  might  fitly  be  termed  a  false  Spring.  A 
wind  treacherous  and  soft,  caressed  the  land.  As 
if  made  of  burnished  silver,  shone  the  passing 


70  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

clouds.  Lovely  tints  of  pale,  turquoise  blue,  lay 
on  the  placid  water,  and  the  mountains,  like  vast 
crumpled  foldings  of  cream-colored  silk,  stood 
shimmering  along  the  horizon.  I  would  have 
thought  that  the  time  was  truth  itself.  Look 
where  one  would  was  a  seeming  presence  of 
spring.  All  of  this,  and  yet  once  more  the  wild 
March  blizzards  come  out  of  the  north.  The  salt 
spray  is  whirled  across  my  island;  the  wet  sleet 
clings  to  the  face  of  the  rocks;  the  waves  break 
over  the  backs  of  those  twin  islets,  the  Cubs,  and 
the  foam  leaps  half  way  up  the  breast  of  the  Lion 
—the  great  Northern  Cliff. 


A  CRUISE  ROUND  MY  HOME. 


VI 
A  CRUISE  ROUND  MY  HOME. 

AFTER  these  many  days,  I  have  just  seen  my 
island.  Hitherto,!  have  been  too  near.  Gun- 
nison  suggests  the  truism — "It  is  much  eas- 
ier to  descend  from  the  whole  to  a  part,  than  it  is 
to  ascend  from  a  part  to  the  whole."  Like  life  itself, 
an  island,  to  be  rightly  known,  needs  sometimes 
to  be  seen  from  without.    It  needs  to  fall  some- 
what into  the  retrospect,  and  its  parts,  like  events 
in  a  life,  to  be  seen  when  not  out  of  proportion 
through  the  law  of  perspective.    To  appreciate 

73 


74  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

this  place,  as  a  piece  of  rude  and  sterile,  yet  at 
the  same  time,  attractive  scenery,  one  should 
view  it  from  a  boat's  deck,  and  at  a  considerable 
distance  from  its  shores. 

A  rude  and  unarranged  mass — that  the  Gun- 
nison  certainly  is.  But  from  the  water  it  is 
something  more.  It  is  a  rock,  a  rising  of  the  par- 
tially submerged  Desert  Range  of  Mountains; 
a  summit  of  black  limestone  with  longitudinal 
traversements  of  coarse  conglomerate.  Parts  of 
the  island  are  low,  its  mean  height,  something 
like  a  hundred  feet,  but  at  its  northern  end  it 
stands  two  hundred,  eighty-four  feet  above  the 
surrounding  sea.  Three  miles  would  probably 
exceed  the  length  of  its  shore  line,  yet  five  min- 
ature  bays  indent  its  irregular  plan.  Seen  from 
the  south,  its  mass  assumes  most  symmetrical 
proportions.  Square,  rocky  headlands,  bulwarks 
at  either  end,  are  joined  by  a  low  flat  causeway, 
over  which  one  sees,  pyramidal  in  shape,  the 
main  peak  of  the  island.  On  a  limited  scale,  it 
has  beetling  cliffs,  sandy  beaches,  walls,  mounds, 
old  molars  of  rock,  fantastic  forms  innumerable. 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  75 

One  might  believe  that  the  Gunnison  was  de- 
signed to  show  the  wild  and  stern  in  the  pictur- 
esque. 

A  couchant  lion;  such  is  the  outline  of  the 
Northern  Cliff.  Though  the  outlines  of  Stans- 
bury's  and  Church  Islands  are  quite  of  the 
grandest,  and  these  two  islands  are  much  larger 
and  higher,  in  the  boldness  of  its  skyline,  Gunni- 
son exceeds  them  both.  As  one  approaches  the 
upper  end  of  Gunnison  Island,  going  from  west 
to  east,  there  lies  the  beast.  His  massive  head  is 
turned  eastward,  his  monstrous  paws  rest  on  the 
lower  shelves.  Below  him  the  water  is  deep,  and, 
today,  is  richly  blue.  The  islets,  called  the 
"Cubs"  and  joined  just  below  the  surface  of  the 
sea,  to  the  main  island  by  a  projection  of  the 
living  rock,  add  materially  to  the  wildness  of  the 
surrounding  scene.  Under  the  gloomy  heights 
of  the  Northern  Cliff,  and  between  the  islets,  we 
ran  our  yacht.  As  we  startled  the  birds  with  our 
repeated  shouts,  from  the  stony  breast  of  the 
watching  monolith,  the  sound  of  our  voices  came 
back  in  far-heard  echoes. 


76  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

Here  Ruskin  would  live  in  dolor.  Hardly  could 
the  "Art  Seer"  be  expected  to  comprehend  the 
love  that  might  come  to  one  through  the  exer- 
cise of  those  two  most  American  of  American 
privileges — the  Homestead  Entry  and  the  Squat- 
ter's Right.  Yet  this  place  is.  On  such  a  spot  as 
Gunnison  burns"The  Lamp  of  Truth,"  if  not  "The 
Lamp  of  Memory."  The  homesteader  and  the 
squatter,  they,  more  than  another,  should  look  to 
the  future.  Up  in  the  Hidden  Valley  grew  flow- 
ers the  like  of  which,  for  endless  generations, 
have  been  dear  to  the  old  world  heart  and  brain. 
And  others,  too,  that  had  bloomed  upon  the  self- 
same spots,  century  beyond  century  of  the  past, 
unseen  by  human  eyes.  The  aconite  recalled  the 
skill  of  old  -ZEsculapius,  the  sun-disk  of  Helian- 
thus,  the  worship  of  Phoebus  Apollo ;  the  crane's 
bill  reminded  one  of  the  cloak  of  Mahomet;  a 
Brodia — Star  of  Bethlehem — brought  to  mind 
the  wonder  of  Christ's  nativity;  and  there,  too, 
Ranunculus  Navalis — like  a  tiny  Passion  Flower 
— suggested  Gethsemane  Garden  and  Calvary 
Hill.  Here  on  Gunnison  the  ancient  sage  recalls 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  77 

great  Artemis;  and  the  planets  and  constella- 
tions, as  they  roll  overhead,  bring  with  them  a 
presence  of  the  heathen  gods  and  Him  of  Holy 
Writ.  This  the  new  world  owes  to  the  old;  but 
amid  this  newness  of  thought  and  action,  as  upon 
the  mountain  heights,  there  burns  a  lamp,  and 
one  of  clearest  flame.  This  is  one  not  included 
among  the  Seven  of  Architecture — The  Lamp  of 
Hope. 

And  while  the  scenery  to  landward  had  kept 
our  attention,  there  was,  across  the  wide  reaches 
of  moving  waters,  ever-shifting  panoramas  of  is  - 
lands  and  mountains,  but  never  once  was  there 
the  flash  of  a  rival  sail.  From  the  beginning  to 
the  end  of  our  cruise,  not  a  sign  of  life  met  our 
gaze.  The  island  huts,  a  group  of  sifters,  came 
almost  as  a  surprise  after  the  lonely  seascape 
and  otherwise  deserted  shores. 

The  sun  fell.  In  the  east  the  dead  moon  came 
up,  and  stared  like  a  ghost  at  the  acrid  waters  of 
a  dead  sea.  Girding  the  far  horizon,  the  western 
mountains  appeared  like  the  outermost  land  of 


78  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

earth  resting  on  molten  gold.  The  Dome  of  Ma- 
lad,  the  old  city — the  turret-like  squares,  the 
broken  walls  of  the  denuded  rocks  on  the  desert 
rim — were  consumed  in  fire.  When  the  sun 
touched  the  verge,  it  was  as  though  one  looked 
into  a  furnace  of  ruby  flame.  On  the  western 
front  of  the  great  Northern  Cliff,  and  on  the 
wings  of  the  gulls  that  soared  so  high,  the 
strange  light  rested. 

"Behold  the  fowls  of  the  air ;  for  they  sow  not 
Neither  do  they  reap,  nor  gather  into  barns." 

Not  inappropriate  either,  as  we  passed  beneath 
that  ruin — that  pile  of  nature's  upbuilding — 
seemed  the  words  of  the  prophet : 

"But  the  cormorant  and  the  bittern  shall  pos- 
sess it ;  the  owl  also,  and  the  raven  shall  dwell  in 
it;  and  He  shall  stretch  out  upon  it  the  line  of 
confusion  and  the  stones  of  emptiness." 

The  Hidden  Valley — I  should  like  to  describe 
that  place. 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  79 

Two  deep  canons  of  the  Wasatch  range  begin 
on  the  sides  of  a  central  peak.  Almost  parallel  in 
their  courses,  there  stands  between  these  neigh- 
boring passes,  a  stupendous  barrier  of  mountain 
wall.  Leading  up  to  this,  and  to  peaks  still  higher 
— set  like  watch-towers  along  its  way — are  wind- 
ing ridges,  with  knifelike  edges,  and  overlook- 
ing deep  ravines,  ragged  and  grizzly  with  thick- 
set spears  of  fractured  stone.  On  the  north  side, 
especially,  the  wall  is  exceedingly  grand.  From 
time  to  time,  its  already  tremendous  strength  is 
augmented  by  mighty  bastions,  the  tops  of 
which,  seen  from  the  canon  below,  appear  to  be 
the  crests  of  the  peaks  themselves.  To  be  exact, 
however,  there  are  two  rows  of  these  bastions, 
one  set  above  and  back  of  the  other,  so  that  be- 
hind the  tops  of  the  lower  row,  and  the  base  of 
the  other,  at  an  elevation  of  some  ten  thousand 
feet,  there  lies  a  long  and  narrow  space.  This  is 
the  Hidden  Valley.  As  now  I  sometimes  turn 
my  glass  towards  the  heights,  so  when  there, 
with  this  same  glass,  I  made  out  amid  the  distant 
waters,  this  desert  home. 


80  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

A  man  may  be  known  by  the  game  that  he  fol- 
lows. Thus  we  may  judge  of  a  Columbus,  a  Na- 
poleon, a  Cromwell;  and  Tyndall  and  Darwin. 
The  Order  of  Things — Cosmos — these  men 
knew,  is  everywhere  to  be  found.  The  great 
games,  they  are  easy  to  understand.  But  if  one 
cannot  subdue  a  people,  he  may  subdue  a  soil; 
if  he  cannot  discover  a  continent,  he  may  dis- 
cover an  island.  A  lake-hunt  led  me  to  the  Hid- 
den Valley,  and  there  was  a  double  purpose  in 
coming  to  Gunnison.  One  must  rest  content,  if 
it  be  his  fate,  in  achievements  in  a  lesser  scale. 

In  the  Hidden  Valley,  what  pleasure  has  been 
mine!  There  I  have  known  the  explorer's  zeal. 
The  approach  to  Gunnison  is  across  the  broad 
waters,  open  on  every  side,  but  Hidden  Valley 
has  a  secret  entrance.  Its  narrow  door-way — at 
the  top  of  a  long,  steep  glen — is  between  two 
monster  boulders.  The  heights  above  the  Sis- 
ter Lakes,  looking  up  the  valley,  are  pyramidal 
in  form,  but  looking  down  the  valley,  the  reverse 
is  true.  The  view  is  then  bounded  by  dome 
forms,  the  interior  shelves  crescented,  so  that 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  81 

some  of  the  cliffs  appear  as  vast  flights  of  steps, 
each  step  curve-fronted.  The  runnels  that  feed 
the  lakes,  etch  lines  of  ink  across  wastes  of  ice 
and  snow,  lave  club-mossed  boulders  of  granite, 
or  storm-loosened  fragments  of  porphyry,  dizzily 
poised,  or  banks  rainbow-tinted  with  mountain 
flowers.  Lakes  Gog  and  Magog,  Mary  and 
Martha,  Lackawaxan  (Glacier),  Storm-Cloud, 
those  around  the  base  of  Lone  and  Twin  Peaks — 
I  love  them  all.  Above  the  groups  is  that  mas- 
sive peak,  that  rock  the  first  to  rise,  of  all  these 
western  heights,  above  the  waves  of  the  pri- 
meval ocean — that  purple-gray  peak,  that  now 
looks  over  the  canon  heads,  though  it  was  once 
an  island,  the  haunt  of  aquatic  wild  birds  that 
looked  at  the  sun  through  the  mists  of  the 
world's  morning. 

The  Hidden  Valley  and  this  Northern  Cliff 
of  Gunnison  are,  of  this  land,  my  favorite  scenes. 


THE  TWENTY-FIRST  OF  JUNE. 


VII 
THE  TWENTY-FIRST  OF  JUNE. 

THE  twenty-first  day  in  the  Month  of  Roses 
— June !    Now  thunders  in  each  canon  the 
mountain  stream;  now  touches  the  flood- 
tide  on  these  highest  sands.    Flushed  with  the 
colors  of  June,  the  distant  mountain  heights  are 
beautiful  in  the  borrowed  hues  of  this  Month  of 
the  Rose. 

"Tempera,  Mutantur."  Yes,  and  we  change 
with  them.  Five  years  ago,  I  was  in  the  Hidden 
Valley.  Along  the  northern  sides  of  the  Sister 
Lakes,  the  terra-cotta  ledges  were  clear  of  snow, 

85 


86  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

but  a  mass,  the  depth  of  which  one  could  hardly 
guess,  still  lay  by  the  mighty  wall.  On  the 
hearth-stone  of  the  cabin,  which  my  (to  me  pre- 
historic) friends  had  left,  I  laid  great  logs.  The 
deserted  room  was  damp  and  mouldy.  Ferns 
grew  between  the  unadzed  timbers,  and  the  fal- 
len pine-cones  sprouted  on  the  unused  pathway. 
On  that  Mid-summer  Day,  the  strip  of  untrod- 
den meadow  in  front  of  the  cabin  was  intense  in 
greenness,  and  forget-me-nots  made  its  surface 
beautiful  as  the  Elysian  Fields.  In  all  the  wild 
disorder  there  was  still  an  order.  Not  yet  the 
Monk's-hood  had  bloomed,  but  in  the  upper 
glen  made  ready  troops  of  the  solemn  yet  beau- 
tiful flower.  Thousands  of  purple  asters  waited 
by  the  lakes.  The  Pentstemons  were  already 
like  azure  clouds,  and  on  the  heights  the  lesser 
flowers,  too  (P.  humilis)  clustered  like  gems  on 
the  glacier  rocks.  Sweet,  at  dawn,  from  grass- 
hidden  larks,  came  bubbles  of  melodious  sound. 
Among  the  groves  the  hermit-thrush  and  the 
purple-finch  uttered  their  soft  love-warblings  and 
tender  calls,  and,  in  the  gloaming,  as  Hesperus 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  87 

hung  above  the  craggy  walls,  the  Vesper-spar- 
row sung  its  tuneful  song.  Ah,  the  unstained 
granite,  the  pallid  snow-banks,  weeping,  drop  by 
drop,  into  the  lake's  translucent  depths !  O,  how 
hushed  and  fragrant  the  aisles  among  the  pines ! 
Below  the  snow-line,  the  slopes  were  fairly  aglit- 
ter  with  a  thousand  rills.  High  above  one's  head, 
all  that  could  be  seen,  perhaps,  of  a  mile  of  hur- 
rying water,  were  flashings  as  of  a  fall  of  dia- 
monds. On  another  declevity  could  be  seen  a 
succession  of  snowy  and  miniature  cataracts. 

With  the  winds  from  the  heights,  there  came 
a  soothing  sound,  almost  like  the  hum  of  bees. 

"Saltnoferiof(the,  common  trout)."  That,  per- 
haps, of  my  work  was  the  best.  To  carry,  in  a 
large  tin  pail,  and  up  a  steep  and  broken  trail,  a 
score  or  more  of  the  live  infant  fish,  and  from 
the  lowest  mountain  lake,  deposit  them  in  one 
much  higher,  was  no  easy  task.  Perhaps  it  was 
an  act  that  was  also  commendable.  This  was  be- 
fore I  dwelt  in  the  cabin,  and  the  transplanted 
fish,  while  I  journeyed  here  and  there,  forgetting 


88  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

them  quite,  have  lived  and  thriven.  Once,  at  the 
upper  lakes,  never  a  ripple  from  a  fish  jump, 
broke  the  glassy  stillness  of  the  mountain  mir- 
rors. Then  the  lower  bodies  of  water  swarmed 
with  innumerable  trout,  but  now  the  reverse  is 
true.  The  lower  lakes  are  almost  depopulated. 
Of  late,  trout  weighing  four  pounds  have  been 
taken  from  the  higher  waters,  and,  although  I 
have  never  cast  line  or  net  there,  the  flesh  of 
those  fish — in  imagination — has  been  sweet  in 
my  mouth. 

So  changes  come.  On  Alpine  pastures,  where 
fed  the  herds  of  wary  deer,  is  now  the  flock  of 
sheep.  The  savage  grizzly  gave  place  to  the 
peaceful  cow.  Already  the  nomadic  ruminant 
has  climbed  the  Wasatch  glen,  and  found  the 
Hidden  Valley.  Soon  is  superceded  the  native 
denizen  of  the  wild.  In  the  Hidden  Valley,  who- 
soever my  predecessors  were,  they  were,  at  least, 
the  pioneers.  They  may  have  been  loggers ;  min- 
ers, perhaps.  A  saw-mill  in  the  canon  beneath, 
the  remains  of  a  slippery  wood  track,  would  seem 
to  say  the  first;  but  those  holes,  those  burrows, 


• 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  89 

where,  with  weapons  of  steel  and  blast  of  pow- 
der, men  had  broken  into  the  stubborn  rock, 
would  seem  to  say  the  second.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
pioneers  were  the  trout.  Transplanted  a  thous- 
and feet  or  more  above  their  native  haunt,  the 
enforced  fish-emigrants,  however,  were  more  at 
home  in  that  aforetime  tenantless  lake,  than  are 
now  these  domestic  fowls  brought  to  this  island, 
and  beginning  to  struggle  at  odds  against  the 
native  sea-birds  of  the  wild. 

The  American  is  the  most  strenuous  of  men. 
In  his  practicality,  he  is  the  most  tolerant,  we 
may  say,  of  the  ugly.  Little  time  has  he  for  the 
merely  aesthetic.  And  yet,  often  under  his  busy 
life,  there  is  hidden  a  true  vein  of  the  deeply  po- 
etic. That  the  poetry  of  nature  can  be ;  or  rather 
was,  felt  by  those  who  lived  closest  to  it,  wit- 
nessed the  American  red-man.  The  Arapahoe, 
and  Sioux,  with  all  their  Eastern  brothers  are 
gone,  but  the  Zuni  and  the  Apache  remain.  The 
latter  amid  the  mesas  of  his  sun-scorched  land, 
is  ever  keen  to  the  desert  beauty.  And  I  have 
conversed  with  him  too  often,  not  to  know  the 


90  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

appreciation  of  the  cow-boy,  and  the  pride  in  his 
surroundings  of  the  pioneer. 

Which  be  the  more  solemn,  which  be  the  more 
beautiful,  I  do  not  know!  Once  I  watched  the 
mid-summer  moonlight  in  the  Hidden  Valley.  To 
see  the  vast  basin  of  Lake  Blanche — as  the  crim- 
son alpen  gild  ebbed  from  off  the  Wasatch — 
flooded  with  a  greenish  light  was  a  wondrous 
spectacle.  So,  too,  was  the  moving  shadow  of 
the  mighty  gnomon — a  jut  of  quartzite,  five  hun- 
dred feet  in  height — that  measured  the  passing 
hours  as  on  a  lunar  dial.  An  aged  cedar  that  stands 
on  the  high  ledge  of  Lake  Florence,  gave  to  those 
central  waters,  as  the  moon  glinted  through  the 
outstretched  branches,  and  illumined  a  foamy  cas- 
cade, a  peculiar  interest.  On  the  shore  of  Lake 
Lillian  lies  a  monster  boulder.  Square,  purple- 
black  in  hue,  metallic-hard,  glacier-brought  to  the 
place  of  its  present  rest,  and  ice-scratched,  too,  it 
holds  legends  of  frost  and  fire.  Strange,  from  that 
Wasatch  stone,  to  see  the  light  of  the  orb  on  the 
giant  walls,  the  silent  woods,  the  sleeping  lakes ! 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  91 

Now  I  watch  the  luminosity,  the  moon  laying  a 
pathway  across  the  lonely  and  midnight  wave. 
And  the  moonlight  is  rare.  If  ever  in  man- 
hood's strength,  one  could  bring  back  his  child- 
hood's belief  in  enchanted  valleys  and  magic  isl- 
ands, it  would  be  in  such  a  valley  as  that  in  yon 
Wasatch,  or  on  such  an  island  as  this.  All  around 
is  crystalline  pure.  The  island  peak,  and  even  the 
nearer  rocks  appear  cerulean.  The  slopes  and 
ridges,  the  sleeping  water,  the  far-off  moun- 
tains themselves,  are  wrapped  in  tender  blue. 
And  through  earth's  shadow-cone,  are  shot  the 
moon  rays  of  ruddy  gold. 

Dig,  ye  men  of  muscle;  toss  the  brown  bird- 
dust  through  the  iron  sieves !  This  is  the  Month 
of  the  Rose.  Not  of  roses  do  the  sifters  dream; 
they  think  not  of  roses,  neither  those  of  the  gar- 
den, nor  those  of  the  mountains.  But  I  know  a 
path  where  the  garden  roses  cluster,  and  on  the 
heights,  by  the  side  of  Rose-Malva,  the  wild- 
rose  is  queen.  The  quarryman  knows  not  into 
what  forms  of  beauty  the  marble  he  loosens  may 


92  OUR  INLAND  SEA.     . 

be  carved,  nor  do  the  sifters,  good  men,  think 
into  what  future  forms  of  loveliness  the  mineral 
they  dig  may  be  turned.  Yet,  dig,  there  is  poetry 
in  the  ancient  stuff !  This  gift  of  the  long  ago,  a 
million  roses  of  the  future  may  make  more  fair. 


UNDER  THE  DOG-STAR. 


VIII. 
UNDER  THE  DOG-STAR. 

MY  days  of  trial  are  here.     The  King  of 
Suns,  the  mighty  Sirius,  the  fiery  Dog- 
Star  of  the  ancients,  rules  the  sky.    My 
eyes  ache.     O,  the  insufferable  brightness!     O,, 
the  glare  of  light  upon  the  waters  of  the  Inland 
Sea!    Like  polished  steel  gleams  the  briny  sur- 
face; and  across  it,  the  sun's  path  is  like  that 
same  steel  at  molten  heat.     My  brain  seethes. 
Through  the  smallest  aperture,  sun-arrows  pierce 
into  the  darkened  room.    In  the  tanks  the  water 

95 


96  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

keeps  pure,  but  too  quickly  it  shrinks  away. 
These  are  the  days  when  the  temper  becomes  un- 
certain, when  indolence  and  passion  hold  equal 
sway.  Now  the  heat  of  that  distant  star  gathers 
in  the  veins  and  the  blood  boils.  We  are  made 
the  playthings  of  combustion  taking  place  innu- 
merable miles  away.  Now  the  poet's  eye  is  in 
a  fine  frenzy  rolling ;  the  musician  hears  the  mu- 
sic of  the  spheres.  Now  men  of  nobleness  en 
rapport  with  steller  fires,  are  moved  to  great 
achievements,  or  those  of  lower  instincts  are 
moved  to  deeds  of  crime.  Now,  when  too  bit- 
ter the  wormwood  in  the  cup  of  sorrow,  one  must 
cry  out  like  John  in  the  wilderness,  or  the  deli- 
cate brain  gives  way  to  madness  in  the  fierce 
disquiet  of  the  time. 

"The  heart-sick,"  says  Poe,  "avoid  distant  pros- 
pects. In  looking  from  the  summit  of  a  moun- 
tain one  cannot  help  feeling  abroad  in  the  world. 
Grandeur  in  any  of  its  moods,  especially  in  that 
of  extent,  startles,  excites — and  then  fatigues. 
For  the  occasional  scene,  nothing  can  be  better 
— for  the  constant  view — nothing  can  be  worse. 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  97 

And  in  the  constant  view,  the  objectional  phase 
of  grandeur  is  that  of  extent,  the  worst  phase  of 
extent  that  of  distance." 

The  words  of  Poe  are  true.  Unless  I  fear  not 
to  invite  the  pain  of  dejection,  I  keep  away  from 
the  peak.  I  have  discovered  for  myself  that  on 
the  summit  of  the  cliff,  I  cannot  escape  from  the 
feeling  "abroad,"  of  which  the  poet  speaks.  Not 
only  is  dejection  there  invited,  but  also  is  added 
thereto,  the  irony,  as  it  were,  of  publicity. 
Strange  to  relate,  the  farther  I  see  away  from 
my  place  of  exile,  the  more  unhappy  I  become. 
Melancholy,  impossible  to  turn  aside,  steals  over 
me  at  sight  of  those  vast  stretches  of  briny  wa- 
ters and  those  endless  miles  of  arid  land. 

In  the  brooding,  mid-day  calms,  too,  the  sad- 
dening nature  of  my  surroundings  is  most  strong- 
ly felt.  Yet  it  is  not  the  character  merely  of  the 
sea  and  landscape  that  works  a  depression,  its 
causes  take  a  deeper  root  in  the  soul.  Perhaps, 
too,  I  have  reached  the  stage  in  my  island  life 
when  what  was  a  stimulant  gives  place  to  an- 
tipathy. As  I  stand  in  the  crow's  nest,  erected 


98  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

by  Stansbury,  my  island  lies  around  me  like  a 
map  in  relief.  Beyond  the  waters  are  the  end- 
less mountains;  beyond  the  mountains  the  open 
sky.  There  are  mountains  near  and  mountains 
distant.  There  is  limitless  recurrence  of  slope 
and  peak  and  gorge.  Range  behind  range,  the 
heights  culminate  in  dreary  levels,  in  curve  and 
dome,  or  in  jagged  saw-tooth  edges  along  the 
horizon.  A  hundred  miles  of  the  Wasatch 
Mountains  occupy  but  a  fragment  of  the  vast  cir- 
cumference. There  gape  the  canons,  there  are 
a  hundred  wan  and  nameless  ravines  leading  into 
the  inmost  recesses  of  the  stony  hills.  Tremu- 
lous through  heat-haze  shows  the  receding  white 
of  the  Western  Desert.  There  are  low,  rocky 
hills,  flat-topped  and  sable,  the  old  broken  cliff- 
lines  of  ancient  Bonne ville ;  and  there,  too,  far  to 
the  south,  the  level  escarpments  of  vanished  La 
Hontan.  Vastness  and  strangeness  are  the  lead- 
ing features  of  the  tremendous  landscape,  and 
worse  than  those  to  the  mind,  are  the  powers  of 
memory  and  assimilation.  To  the  inner  eye,  this 
enlarges  the  horizon  a  hundred  fold.  Rather  than 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  99 

be  a  slave  too  long  to  the  infinite  in  the  finite, 
one  tries  to  concentrate  his  attention  upon  some 
petty  object,  to  shrink  into  one's  self,  and  to  find 
rest  for  a  moment  in  anchoring  the  mind  to  some 
near  rock  or  shrub.  But  all  in  vain.  Instinctively, 
as  through  a  resistless  fascination,  the  gaze  wan- 
ders once  more.  No  rest,  no  ceasing.  Again  one 
looks,  around  and  around,  across  and  across  the 
unfriendly  waters.  At  last,  against  all  efforts  of 
will,  a  plunge  into  the  deep,  the  alluring  and 
dreadful  blue. 

Bird-voices  grow  monotonous.  I  am  berated 
from  morning  to  night.  The  gulls  scream  de- 
fiance. In  every  nook  and  corner  of  this  disputed 
island,  go  where  I  will,  the  untired  birds  greet 
my  presence  with  cries  of  resentment.  Not  con- 
tent with  this,  they  await  not  my  coming,  but 
come  themselves  to  my  very  door.  There  they 
utter  their  querulous  and  insulting  notes.  It  is 
painful  to  be  so  very  unpopular.  The  sifters  and 
I — we  act  the  part  of  usurpers.  Truly  the  island 
belongs  to  the  gulls  by  right  of  inheritance.  They 


100  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

are  the  original  possessors.  Then  why  should 
they  not  give  us  the  words  of  ejectment? 

"Thanks.    What's  the  matter,   you   dissentious 
rogues?" 

Are  your  throats  never  weary?  Why  watch  you 
my  every  action?  I  am  not  the  keeper  in  the 
limbo  for  birds.  The  creatures  are  not  unmindful 
of  favors;  they  dash  for  whatever  bits  of  food 
may  come  from  my  table.  But  they  love  me, 
trust  me,  alas !  none  the  more. 

Do  gulls  never  sleep?  For  the  third  part  of  a 
year  now,  I  have  listened  to  their  ceaseless 
clamor.  Their  cries  greet  the  dawn,  they  fail  not 
at  eve,  neither  are  they  absent  at  the  noon  of 
the  day,  nor  the  mid  of  the  night.  My  dogs  may 
bay  at  the  moon,  the  owl  on  the  cliff  may  scatter 
demoniac  laughter,  but  they  cannot  outnoise 
these  obstreperous  gulls. 

The  birds  are  clannish;  there  are  duels  to  the 
death.  Then  what  frenzied  accompaniments  of 
wing-flashings  and  inarticulate  sounds  of  sexual 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  101 

ire.  I  witness,  perhaps,  some  detail  of  natural 
selection.  Perhaps  this  day's  war  was  over  some 
winged  Helen,  some  Isolde,  or  it  may  be  some 
Guinevere  of  the  gulls.  This  colony,  no  doubt, 
is  as  ancient  as  Tyre,  its  laws  unalterable  as  those 
of  the  Medes  and  Persians.  Primitive  order  still 
holds  good  along  its  lanes  and  streets.  Often 
the  male  birds  may  be  seen  in  separate  groups, 
and  then  I  try  to  pick  out  whose  may  be  the 
guiding  will  in  this  "Parlament  of  Fowles."  Who 
is  the  Democratic  Cincinnatus?  Who  is  the 
lordly  Agamemnon,  the  Ajax,  Menaulus,  the  sage 
Ulysses,  or  the  aged  Nestor  of  the  convocation? 
Ha!-ha!—Ha!-ha!  There  are  those  who  laugh. 
Then,  there  must  be  among  them,  a  Thersites; 
some  -3Esop,  too.  Plaintive  the  voices  can  grow. 
"H-e-l-p !'  h-e-l-p !"  With  almost  human  distinct- 
ness comes  at  times  a  piercing  call.  In  the  dead 
of  the  night,  as  the  wild  appeal  comes,  now  from 
one  corner  of  the  island,  now  from  another,  and 
each  and  every  time  with  an  intensity  of  sound  as 
from  a  soul  in  pain;  one  might  fancy  that  the 
spooks  were  abroad,  or,  as  a  nearer  cry  is  fol- 


102  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

lowed  by  a  whispering,  like  voices  suppressed  in 
expectation,  that  some  evil  creature  were  trying 
to  lure  one  over  the  edge  of  the  cliff.  But  it  is 
only  the  gulls. 

But  a  month  since,  and  the  downy  young  gulls 
were  my  best  of  friends.  As  I  lay  on  the  sands  they 
came  chirping  towards  me.  Often  has  the  lapel 
of  my  coat  sheltered  the  little  chicks  and  in  the 
tunnels  of  its  sleeves  they  crept  and  hid.  On  a 
time,  they  nestled  in  perfect  confidence  against 
my  hand,  or  they  cuddled  my  cheek,  or  dozed  be- 
neath my  hair.  But  now  they  are  fearful,  they 
are  filled  with  a  dark  mistrust.  In  my  presence 
they  watch  and  cower.  Or,  with  soft,  plaintive 
cries,  and  faint  flutter  of  half-formed  wings,  they 
run  in  crowds  on  the  sand  before  me.  When 
guided  into  some  cul  de  sac  of  the  cliffs,  there  is 
something  uncanny  in  the  stare  of  their  yellow 
eyes. 

How  they  wheel  and  scream — those  parent 
gulls!  They  put  to  my  nocturnal  wanderings  a 
frightful  din.  Do  you  think  I  will  harm  them? 
Scream  your  loudest,  if  such  you  desire;  yet,  as 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  103 

regards  me,  your  progeny  is  safe.  How  like  a 
white,  fallen  cloud,  appear  your  hosts  on  the  star- 
lit water!  Or,  indeed,  as  I  retrace  my  steps  to 
the  hut,  I  could  think  you,  as  slowly  again  you 
approach  the  dim  shore,  a  fleet  of  tiny  gondolas; 
messengers  unknown  from  an  unknown  shore. 

Beauty  may  become  so  perfect  that  there  is  left 
no  room  for  peace.  There  is  delirium  in  these 
lustrous  nights  as  well  as  in  these  torrid  days.  Too 
closely  the  shining  orbs  wrap  one  around;  too 
multitudinous  they  reflect  in  the  shining  wave! 

There  is  a  degree  of  beauty  that  is  restful,  and 
there  is  one  that  excites.  "There  is  a  nakedness 
in  beauty,"  thought  Ambrose.  "Beauty  may  be- 
come maddening  when  it  removes  veil  after  veil," 
he  says,  "and  we  seem  about  to  stand  in  the  un- 
clothed presence." 

"Is  it  the  climate!  Is  it  the  marvelous  sky?" 
Hugo  exclaimed  so,  when  he  learned  the  death  of 
Count  Bresson.  "A  brilliant  and  a  joyous  sky 
mocks  us!  Nature  in  her  sad  aspects  resembles 
us  and  consoles  us.  Nature  when  radiant,  im- 


104  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

passive,  serene,  magnificent,  transplendent, 
young  while  we  grow  old,  smiling  while  we  are 
sighing,  superb,  inaccessible,  eternal,  contented 
in  its  joyousness,  has  in  it  something  oppressive." 

"People,"  says  Amiel,  "talk  of  the  temptations 
to  crime  connected  with  darkness,  but  the  dumb 
sense  of  desolation  which  is  often  the  product 
of  the  most  brilliant  moments  of  daylight  must 
not  be  forgotten.  Man  feels  lost  and  bewildered, 
a  creature  forsaken  by  all  the  world." 

In  the  heart  of  these  crystal  days  there  lurks 
an  awful  thought.  Today  the  same  as  yesterday ; 
that  like  the  day  before;  tomorrow  but  to  carry 
forward  the  monotony  of  pain.  In  this  guise,  O 
life  and  beauty  and  infinity,  you  are  scarcely  to 
be  borne ! 


A  GUEST  IN  THE  VINEYARD. 


IX. 

A  GUEST  IN  THE  VINEYARD. 

CONCENTRATE  in  one  creature,  all  that 
is  ugly,  all  that  is  detestable  in  the  sur- 
rounding desert ;  take  the  hues  of  the  mud- 
flats, of  the  oozing  alkali,  the  mottled  herbage, 
the  lava,  the  scoriae,  animate  it  with  malevolent 
and  envenomed  life,  and  there  it  is — the  fanged 
and  deadly  "rattler." 

And  this  horror  on  my  island,  too!  Of  what 
avail,  then,  around  my  homestead,  this  girdle  of 
waters?  O  nature,  little  did  I  think  you  would 
send  me  this! 

Yet  all  reptiles  swim.    Almost  all  snakes  move 
107 


108  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

through  water  with  as  much  ease  and  rapidity  as 
they  move  on  land.  Rattlesnakes,  for  instance, 
are  much  given  to  swimming.  They  cross  rivers 
and  wide  stretches  of  placid  water.  This  ex- 
plains, in  connection  with  another  fact,  the  pres- 
ence of  the  navigator  among  my  vines.  On  the 
mainland,  yonder,  I  have  met  the  infant  viper. 
That  offspring  of  evil  raised  its  tiny  head,  and 
although  it  might  have  been,  as  yet,  unarmed 
with  poison,  it  gave  me  proof  indeed,  and  not 
unheeded,  that  it  knew  its  natural  weapon. 

And  this  monster,  too,  this  hideous  creature 
that  has  come  to  these  shores,  it,  also,  was  quick 
to  strike. 

This  is  a  counter  invasion.  There  is  no  mis- 
taking what  this  incident  means.  The  desert  re- 
taliates, it  puts  into  operation  the  natural  law  of 
self-defense.  In  this  presence  among  the  vines 
there  is  a  lesson  to  learn.  Here  is  an  enigma. 
Can  I  be  "Happy  among  the  Rattlesnakes?" 
Can  I  defy  that  taunt,  and  with  a  full  understand- 
ing, too,  of  its  deeper  meanings? 

Never  in  the  slightest  degree  does  my  dread  of 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  109 

the  rattler  lessen.  Never,  be  it  ever  so  little,  have 
I  conquered  that  loathing  the  creature  inspires. 
I  have  heard  what  all  apologists  have  said.  But 
I  fear  and  hate  it  no  less.  Familiarity  only  in- 
creases my  stock  of  abhorrence.  To  the  mental- 
physical  operation  of  watching  the  vines,  this 
visitant  was  an  awful  shock ;  but  after  my  dreams 
in  the  hut,  my  communings  with  hope,  to  the 
inner  senses  much  more  so. 

Hateful  enough  anywhere,  but  doubly  hateful 
that  creature  on  my  homestead  grounds ! 

In  such  a  presence,  the  very  light  of  the  sun 
appears  to  change.  Nature  appears  to  be  less 
beneficient;  something  more  sinister  and  malefic; 
something  more  to  be  feared.  One  seems  to 
stand,  with  such  a  life  before  him,  on  the  edge 
of  a  terrible  gulf ! 

More  hideous,  too,  it  appeared  to  me,  was  that 
rattler  than  any  I  had  heretofore  seen.  But  that 
thought,  of  course,  must  have  its  root  reaching 
to  some  special  feeling.  Twelve  rattles  and  a 
button ;  this  snake  was,  I  suppose,  in  the  heyday 
of  life.  What  black  deeds  stand  to  its  life  account? 


110  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

What  deeds  might  it  not  have  done  in  the  fu- 
ture? Now  is  the  rattlesnake  most  active;  now 
is  the  period  of  its  greatest  muscular  strength; 
in  this  month,  it  is  most  quick  to  strike,  and  now 
are  its  deadly  fangs  most  terribly  envenomed. 
Hideous  in  the  midst  of  those  gleaming  coils,  was 
that  low-poised  head,  the  cold  glitter  of  those 
watchful  eyes.  Hideous  was  that  rattle — a  music 
of  hell! 

I  do  not  know  if  the  description,  in  Beeton's 
Natural  History,  of  the  American  wood  or  har- 
vest mouse  can  be  applied  to  the  mountain  mouse 
of  this  land.  But  I  think  it  can.  The  mice  that 
inhabit  the  island,  and  strangely  enough,  too, 
unless  they  can  live  without  water,  must  be  the 
same.  In  color  they  are  a  reddish-brown  and 
that  answers,  in  that  point,  to  the  description  of 
both  species.  Was  the  rattler  in  search  of  prey? 
Of  course  he  was.  Many  such  trips  had  prob- 
ably been  made  by  the  huge  old  sinner.  Perhaps 
he  came  from  off  the  western  desert;  but  quite 
as  likely  he  came  from  off  the  southern  mainland. 
He  may  have  shortened  the  way  of  the  water  trip 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  Ill 

by  coming  over  Strong's  Knob.  The  rodent 
thieves  of  the  island  have  annoyed  me  greatly. 
Nothing  to  them  is  sacred.  They  play  havoc  in 
my  bin,  and  my  sketch-book  has  not  escaped 
them.  And  yet,  I  do  not  like  to  think  of  the  re- 
counter  between  the  mice  and  the  snake.  The 
cliff -owl  probably  remains  here  for  the  same  pur- 
pose as  brought  the  rattler,  but  the  owl's  seeking 
of  his  natural  food  does  not  fill  me  with  the  same 
disquiet,  or  the  same  compassion  for  the  mice, 
as  does  the  picture  of  that  other. 

Why? 

To  lie,  all  but  invisible,  at  the  foot  of  an  orch- 
ard tree,  or  in  the  dust  of  the  village  school-path, 
to  coil  amid  the  settler's  corn,  to  sun  itself  upon 
the  Homesteader's  door-step,  aye,  even  to  creep 
below  the  blanket,  spread  upon  the  ground,  of  the 
lonely  herdsman  or  sleeping  prospector — these 
are  ways  of  the  rattler.  The  beaver  that  leaves 
a  trail  of  white  upon  the  darkness  of  a  Wasatch 
lake,  the  gray  old  badgers  that  run,  with  that 
squat,  stealthy  motion  of  theirs,  across  the  moun- 
tain debris,  but  add  the  finishing  touch  to  a  pic- 


112  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

ture  of  solitude.  To  see  the  freshly  made  rents 
upon  the  silver  bark  of  the  trembling  aspen,  the 
mark  of  the  claws  of  the  savage  grizzly,  or  to 
come  upon  its  wallow,  just  deserted,  in  some 
boggy  spot  amid  the  pines,  may  make  the  heart 
beat  quicker  for  a  moment,  as  it  will  to  hear  that 
cry  infernal  which  comes  at  twilight  from  the 
wild-cat's  jaws.  But  although  the  rattlesnake  is 
just  as  much  a  natural  outcome  and  fitting  inhab- 
itant of  these  deserts,  I  cannot  but  shudder  at  it. 
Once,  on  an  Oquirrh  summit,  I  met  with  an 
adventure  with  birds.  A  pair  of  eagles — the  bald 
— inhabited  the  peak.  I  had  crossed  the  lower 
slopes  near  Black  Rock — where  the  warning  note 
of  the  rattler  was  in  my  ears — and  climbed  the 
steeps  at  the  northern  end  of  the  range.  There 
the  mountain  slopes  so  that  one  may  climb  and 
it  is  clothed  with  woods,  but,  on  the  southern 
front,  the  rocks  fall  sheer ;  there  is  a  precipice  of 
awful  height.  As  I  emerged  from  a  grove  of 
pines,  suddenly  the  ground  seemed  to  drop  from 
beneath  my  feet,  and  while  I  stood  for  a  moment 
there,  bewildered,  dizzy,  the  eagles — mindful  of 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  113 

the  eaglets — made  their  attack.  With  wild 
screams  and  fiend-like  working  of  talons,  they 
dashed  in  my  face,  and  all  but  caused  my  fall. 

For  a  moment  I  looked  into  the  eyes  of  death. 
Incarnate,  yes,  incarnate!  Evil  is  not  merely 
negation.  Beset  by  those  wrathful  birds,  with 
that  void  in  the  earth  below  me,  with  the  dread 
expectancy  of  falling  blindly  through  space,  to  be 
crushed  upon  the  rocks  below,  even  that  was  not 
so  horrible  as  to  look  into  the  hell-lit  eyes  of  my/ 
unwelcome  visitor. 

"There  is  in  fact  no  evil."  So  says  the  poet. 
But  the  homesteader  what?  And  this  creature — 
where  may  be  his  wife  and  children!  The  in- 
stinctive action,  the  swiftly-hurled  stone,and  that 
poison-armed  reptile,  that  heap  of  coils,  and  with 
severed  head,  dying  amid  the  vines — such  was 
the  answer  to  that. 

"The  Survival  of  the  Fittest."  Ah !  there  the 
homesteader  finds  solid  ground. 

Civilization,  the  progress  of  the  race,  implied, 
and  still  implies,  the  extinction  of  certain  beasts 
and  reptiles,  no,  evil  is  not  merely  negation.  With 


114  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

the  Elemental  around  me,  here,  if  anywhere,  I 
may  test  the  thought.  It  is  but  a  fair  hope  that 
all  the  waste  places  of  the  earth  shall  yet  know 
a  civilization  superior  to  any  that  has  gone  be- 
fore. But  first  comes  the  destruction  of  odious 
creatures. 

Soon  only  traditionally,  will  Europeans  be  able 
to  take  interest  in  wolf  and  boar  hunts.  As  now 
in  America,  the  buffalo  hunt  is  a  thing  of  the 
past,  so  will  it  soon  be  in  Africa.  Civilization  ex- 
tends its  bounds  on  every  hand.  As  from  civilized 
Europe  and  the  British  Isles,  the  bear  has  gone, 
so  in  this  western  land,  his  kind  must  go.  The  pi- 
oneer is  sort  of  god.  He  meets  the  Lernaean 
hydra  and  the  birds  of  Lake  Stymphalis.  Still 
the  serpent  comes  out  of  the  dragon's  blood,  and 
is  bred  in  marsh  and  fen.  The  lions  that  prowl 
adown  the  palace  steps  of  Persepolis;  the  vul- 
tures that  perch  upon  the  voluted  columns  of 
Tadmor,  or  the  foxes  that  creep  on  the  spot 
where  Elis  stood,  these  animals  occupy — to  civ- 
ilization— an  antipodal  position  to  that  repre- 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  115 

sented  by  the  wild  beasts  here.  In  a  hundred 
years  from  now,  it  is  computed,  the  king  of  beasts 
will  be  extinct.  If  that  be  true,  then  the  great 
bronze  lions  which  Sir  Edwin  Landseer  modeled 
for  the  monument  in  Trafalgar  Square,  are  likely 
to  outlast  their  living  prototypes.  And  the  rude 
nature-carving  of  this  island  cliff?  How  long 
will  it  last?  Perhaps  outlive  the  British  civiliza- 
tion itself.  Aye !  already  old  these  thousands  of 
years,  it  may — if  greed  does  not  blast  the  rock 
away — outwatch  the  growth  and  decay  of  this 
young  giant,  this  awakening  nation  of  the  west- 
ern world. 

Tonight,  with  verse,  I  find  that  my  words  give 
utterance  to  another  vein  of  thought. 

THE  MYSTERY  OF  MATTER. 

I  matter  love  for  that  which  breathes  it  through, 
The  palpable  to  sense  of  touch  and  sight, 
Filled  with  the  beauty  of  the  power  of  light, 

Substance  made  symbol  by  its  form  and  hue. 


116  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

I  matter  fear  for  that  whence  power  it  drew, 
The  deadly  hates  that  at  love's  being  smite, 
The  subtle  poison  that  the  pure  can  blight, 

O,  rivals,  meeting  on  life's  avenue ! 

This  blameless  soil  opposing  force  will  sow, 
The  butterfly  and  serpent  share  this  clod; 

Roses  and  lilies,  tares  and  thistles  grow, 
Evil  and  good  emerge  from  this  dull  sod; 

Therein  we  may  the  Prince  of  Darkness  know, 
And  who  dares  limit  how  we  shall  see  God ! 


CONTENTS  OF  A  CAIRN. 


CONTENTS  OF  A  CAIRN. 

A  HUMAN  skull!    Where,  then,  shall  one 
tread,  and  not  on  the  dust  of  man?    These 
arid  hills  are  but  cemeteries.    In  these  sur- 
rounding lands — Idaho,  Wyoming,  Colorado — 
the    graveyards   are   found.     Jurassic   reptiles, 
mailed  creatures  of  terrible  power,  lie  there  em- 
bedded.   The  feet  of  the  shepherd,  the  hunter's 
and  the  cowboy's  pony,  have  stumbled  against 
great  bones.    The  huge  remains  formed  a  feature 

119 


120  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

in  the  desert  landscape.*  Around  my  horizons 
are  lands  that  have  been  submerged  in  water, 
that  have  been  earthquake  shaken,  and  over 
which  glaciers  have  crept  in  the  by-gone  days; 
lands  that  were  once  the  bottom  of  ancient  seas ; 
that  cover  the  remains  of  forests  below  forests, 
and  beneath  whose  soils  there  are  secrets  hidden. 
In  Utah  cairns  and  mounds  have  been  lately 
opened.  Remains  of  the  dead  have  been  found 
therein.  To  the  south  of  Strong's  Knob,  within 
yonder  mass  of  black  limestone  crags,  bones, 
cave-entombed,  have  been  brought  to  light.  So 
ancient  were  they,  those  bones,  that  ere  the 
smoke  of  the  miner's  blast  had  cleared  away, 
they  crumbled  to  dust  on  the  cavern  floor.  Science 
will  never  know  to  what  kind  of  creatures  those 
bones  belong,  nor  will  it  ever  be  able,  perhaps, 
to  ascribe  an  age  to  this  skull. 


*This  is  a  literal  fact  In  Wyoming  the  "finds"  of  fos- 
sils were  so  made.  This  was  in  the  dry-washes,  among 
those  frayed,  crumbled,  honey-combed  rocks  near  the 
Green  River  and  Church  Buttes  country.  In  Colorado,  the 
herdsmen  had  built  the  foundation  of  a  shelter  cabin  with 
the  great  round  vertebra  of  the  disjointed  monsters. 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  121 

Eastward  I  see  a  dim  range  of  hills.  Along 
the  flanks  of  those  Wasatch  spurs,  there  was 
once  a  battle  fought.  In  the  distant  past,  the 
dead  from  that  aboriginal  strife  were  buried  in 
the  conglomerate  caves.  Here,  also,  are  to  be 
found  similar  cave-like  openings;  but  the  relic 
came  not  from  either  of  these.  It  was  found  by 
my  man.  On  the  south  slope  of  the  Northern 
Cliff,  under  a  ledge,  and  at  the  end  of  my  high- 
est vineyard  trellis,  with  his  mattock,  the  Drudge 
unearthed  the  skull. 

Devil  has  strutted  over  that  spot,  I  know  not 
how  many  times.  But  his  sharp,  prying  eyes 
did  not  see.  Under  that  very  ledge  the  raven 
had  made  a  cache,  and  within  a  few  inches  of  the 
dome  of  the  skull.  His  curiosity  is  not  small,  so 
his  instinct  must  have  been  at  fault.  Otherwise, 
surely,  he  would  have  found  the  prize. 

How  was  the  skull  placed  there  ?  Bonneville's 
beating  waves,  rounded  and  polished  the  ledges 
of  Strong's  Knob,  long  after  those  creatures, 
whatever  they  were,  had  been  entombed  in  the 


122  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

hollow  rock.  So  long  had  those  bones  been  in 
that  place,  that  the  living  creatures  themselves 
existed  and  died  ere  Lake  Bonneville  fell  or  was. 
And  the  skull?  Whatever  its  age,  whatever  was 
the  remote  period  of  time  when  its  owner  was  a 
living  man,  I  hardly  expect,  now,  the  bones  to 
crumble.  By  some  preservative  process  it  has 
been  made  as  hard  as  ivory,  and  as  softly- 
browned  toned  as  a  piece  of  old  ivory,  too. 

From  out  those  sockets,  the  eyes,  that  once 
were  there,  looked  last — on  what?  Was  that 
man's  last  glimpse  of  earth  this  surrounding 
scene?  Did  the  Inland  Sea  look  then,  as  it  does 
this  day?  Did  the  mountains  stand  so?  To  the 
skull  I  may  put  the  scornful  command,  "Say  what 
ancestors  were  thine !"  But  no  answer  shall  I  get. 
No  voice  will  come  from  the  silent  past.  Little 
indeed  could  the  owner  of  that  piece  of  mortality 
have  conceived  of  the  coming  race!  Much  less 
was  his  power  to  look  forward  to  our  day,  than 
for  us  to  look  backward  to  his.  That  man  was  a 
fighter.  Low,  indeed,  and  flat  is  that  cranium 
arch.  It  is  broad  at  the  base,  and  the  frontal  area 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  123 

is  small  and  it  slopes,  but  large  and  thrust  for- 
ward are  the  supra-orbital  ridges. 

What  has  my  island  known?  Has  it,  too,  been 
a  battlefield?  In  the  days  gone  by,  it  may  have 
been  a  secret  stronghold — a  place  of  retreat.  I 
have  been  led  to  believe  that  the  native  Indians 
have  kept  away  from  these  islands,  as  they  did 
from  the  mountain  tops ;  but  this  skull  may  have 
belonged  to  an  older  race,  perhaps  to  a  paleolithic 
man. 

It  may  be  that  the  man  was  contemporary 
with  those  whose  mummies  were  found  in  the 
room  beneath  the  Payson  Mound.  His  relatives 
may  have  planted  the  grain  or  have  gathered 
the  kernels  which  were  found  in  that  old  stone 
box.  If  so,  then  this  disinterred  warrior  would 
recognize  the  wheat — that  wheat  I  mean,  a  kind 
hitherto  unknown  and  which  is  now  grown  in 
many  of  these  arid  valleys  from  that  ancient  seed. 
Perhaps  he  was  contemporary  with  the  making 
of  that  earth-fort  among  the  Oquirrh  foothills. 
He  may  have  aided  in  or  directed  the  building  of 


124  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

that  pile,  that  mound  of  oolithic  sand,  which 
stands  a  mystery  on  yonder  plain.  There  are 
some  strange  speculations  aroused  by  the  sight  of 
this  skull. 

Did  that  human  being,  its  owner,  poison  his 
arrow  tips?  If  so,  perhaps  he  took  the  poison 
from  the  forerunner  of  my  unwelcome  guest.  He 
may  have  sent  such  another  creature  with  a  mes- 
sage to  his  god,  as  do  the  desert  Indians  to  this 
very  day.  In  life,  did  the  man  look  on  any  such 
creature  as  those  whose  bones  still  project  from 
the  soil? 

It  may  be  that  this  skull  is  as  old  as  are  the 
remains  of  that  long  extinct  race,  those  people, 
which  are  found  in  the  sepulchral  chambers  high 
among  the  red  rocks  of  the  San  Juan — the  cliff- 
dwellers  in  the  southern  part  of  the  State. 

Here,  then,  was  the  secret — the  island,  al- 
though it  has  probably  been  a  fort,  a  battle- 
ground, has  also  been  a  place  of  supulcher. 

As  we  dug  amid  the  earth  and  stones,  how 
surprised  were  we! 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  125 

A  short  distance  from  the  spot  where  the  skull 
was  found,  we  exhumed  more  bones.  There 
were  a  broken  scapula,  a  clavicle,  parts  of  a  hu- 
murus,  fragments  of  a  spinal  column,  but  no 
more.  And,  unlike  the  skull,  these  bones  were  in 
an  advanced  stage  of  decay. 

Just  below  them  we  came  upon  the  top  of  a 
slab,  that  covered  the  tomb. 

There,  as  it  had  reposed  through  the  ages,  was 
a  skeleton  complete.  For  an  infinite  time  it  must 
have  lain  in  that  narrow  home.  A  weapon  of 
stone — a  huge,  round  battleax — lay  by  his  side. 
Also  there  were  many  arrow-heads — of  agate 
and  jagged  obsidian — also  there  were  many 
round  agates,  which  I  supposed  to  be  beads. 
Once  the  owner  was  a  man  of  note. 

About  the  remains  in  the  cave-dwellings  of  the 
San  Juan  County,  archaeologists  differ.  What  is 
their  age?  Those  air-dried  mummies  may  be  of 
any  age.  Five  thousand  years,  twenty-five  thou- 
sand, the  estimate  ranges  from  one  great  gulf  of 
time  to  that  of  another.  And  this  memento  mori, 
this  island  tomb?  I  believe  it  to  be  as  ancient  as 


126  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

any.  Very  much  in  the  arrangements  of  the 
stones,  the  slab  which  formed  the  cover,  those  of 
the  sides  and  floor,  this  tomb  resembles  the  most 
ancient  ones  found  beneath  the  barrows  or  crom- 
lechs of  the  old  world.  These  remains  and  this 
resting-place  may  be  older  than  the  skeletons 
and  the  tombs  which  contain  them,  which  are 
found  in  the  lowest  excavations  below  Nippur. 
It  is  indeed,  then,  an  old  proprietor  who  makes 
manifest  his  prior  claim  to  my  home. 

There  was,  I  think,  at  one  time,  an  entire  skel- 
eton, also,  in  the  earth  above  the  tomb.  If  so, 
it  must  have  occupied  an  oblique  position,  feet 
downward  toward  the  slab.  What  caused  the 
lower  parts  to  crumble?  And  why  did  they  dis- 
integrate so  much  more  rapidly  than  did  the 
upper?  Why  did  we  not  find  either  ulna  or  ra- 
dius; a  rib-bone,  nor  anything  of  the  skeleton  as 
low  as  the  pelvis?  And  why  was  this — the  skull 
removed  so  far  from  the  rest  of  the  bones?  But 
most  of  all,  what  relationship  of  events,  if  any, 
existed  between  the  two  sets  of  remains?  Just 
now  I  am  likely  to  receive  no  answer. 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  127 

What  have  we  found?  Of  a  spear-head,  similar 
to  this  one  of  mine,  Russell  has  the  following  re- 
marks: "The  fossils  from  the  La  Hontan  basin 
(within  my  sight)  that  will  be  considered  by  both 
geologists  and  archaeologists  as  of  the  greatest 
interest,  is  a  spear-head  of  human  workmanship. 
It  was  associated  in  such  a  manner  with  the 
bones  of  an  elephant,  or  mastodon,  as  to  leave 
no  doubts  as  to  their  having  been  buried  at  ap- 
proximately the  same  time." 

Among  my  curios,  there  lies  this  trio  of  relics : 
a  spear-head,  within  a  fraction  of  four  inches  in 
length,  and  made  of  flint ;  a  circular  piece  of  stone 
— one  and  three-quarters  inches  in  diameter,  one 
half  inch  in  thickness,  and  with  a  shallow  central 
perforation  on  either  side;  and  a  most  singular 
elongated  piece  of  circular  stone,  two  and  one- 
quarter  inches  in  length;  both  of  the  last-named 
being  made  of  the  same  material — a  red  gray- 
stone,  and  highly  polished.    The  flint  came  from 
a  Wasatch  canon,  where  it  was  found  in  a  bank 
of  the  stream.    The  other  pieces  are  from  the 
hillside  in  the  same  vicinity,  and  are  certainly  pre- 


128  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

historic.  The  remains  we  have  just  found,  and 
the  face  ornaments,  as  I  believe  the  pieces  of 
stone  to  be,  impress  me  as  being  equally  old. 

During  the  excavations  in  Arizona,  among  the 
burying-places  of  the  ancient  people  of  the  petri- 
fied forests,  the  evidence  of  old  time  tragedies 
were  not  to  be  mistaken.  Among  the  orderly 
burials,  were  found  a  heap  of  calcined  and  broken 
bones.  The  marks  of  the  implements  used  in 
cracking  the  bones  were  still  traceable.  It  was, 
says  one  who  describes  the  "find,"  the  first  ma- 
terial proof  of  cannibalism  among  the  North 
American  Indians.  What  do  we  see?  Perhaps 
we  have  unearthed,  in  that  skull  and  those  up- 
per bones,  the  evidence  of  some  dark,  mysteri- 
ous rite,  some  cruel  superstition  of  the  long  ago. 

The  discoveries  of  the  last  few  days  have  given 
me  questions  to  ponder. 


OLD  AND  NEW  DEATH. 


\ 


XL 
OLD  AND  NEW  DEATH. 

44TT7HOSO    sheddeth    man's  blood,  by 
\  \     man  shall  his  blood  be  shed." 

Hardly  had  I  time  to  think  over 
the  old  law  and  to  connect  it  with  those  scenes 
of  the  past,  than  there  comes  this  sequel — this 
deed  that  sprinkled  new  blood  stains  on  the  isl- 
and sands. 

Red-handed — .  Not  yet  shall  the  miracle  of 
Life  give  approval  to  my  work,  but  upon  it  shall 
be  stamped  the  seal  of  Death. 

O  inscrutable  mystery;  how  quickly  man  falls 
131 


132  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

to  the  depths,  how  slowly  he  climbs  to  the 
heights ! 

Once  more  the  law  of  force.  Once  more,  the 
notes  of  The  Grim  Musician,  and  even  in  this  wil- 
derness, one  hears  the  riot  of  the  Dance  Mac- 
abre! 

More  terrible,  perhaps,  more  ghastly,  appears 
that  dance  to  us — the  moderns — than  it  did  to 
the  people  of  the  Middle  Ages.  More  grotesque, 
more  fantastic,  even,  as  we  view  it  through  the 
naturalist's  labors.  We  see  the  human  death- 
dance  mingled,  as  it  were,  with  that  of  the  long 
procession,  the  millions  of  years  of  the  lower  cre- 
atures, and  the  death-dance  of  the  world's,  too, 
by  the  light  of  modern  science. 

Everywhere  is  the  mark  of  Death ;  everywhere 
sounds  the  passing  bell.  Death  and  brute  force, 
back  from  this  hour  to  the  act  of  Cain ! 

Clinging  to  the  bones  of  the  mammoth  and  the 
mastodon,  I  have  seen  the  bright  grains  of  placer- 
gold.  I  know  not  if  there  be  any  gold  of  prom- 
ise clinging  to  these  old  remains.  Battles  there 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  133 

have  always  been;  battles  of  many  kinds. 
Through  the  geologic  ages,  with  claws  and 
horns,  with  teeth  that  cut  and  tore,  the  primeval 
creatures  foretold  the  wrath  of  man.  And  still 
there  is  strife.  "They  that  take  the  sword  shall 
perish  by  the  sword,"  the  warning  contained  in 
those  words  is  ever  fulfilled.  But  do  we  move  on- 
ward to  a  time  when  war  shall  be  no  more?  When 
murder  shall  be  unknown,  when  the  desire  to  kill 
shall  no  longer  be  inherent  in  the  human  race  ? 

What  need  to  look  backward  to  the  time  of  the 
poisoned  arrow,  to  the  age  when  battleax 
smashed  skull  and  brain.  The  smaller  ones 
among  my  arrow-heads — agates,  not  more  than 
the  half  of  an  inch  in  length,  are  notched  for  the 
holding  of  poison,  but  do  we  need  the  like  this 
day?  Conformed,  no  doubt,  were  those  skulls 
we  have  found  to  the  conditions  and  needs  amid 
which  their  owners  lived.  The  human  forehead 
has  been  lifted  since  then — 

But  the  brute  is  still  in  man. 

At  the  very  sight  of  crime  one  feels  himself  de- 


134  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

based.  That  which  is  in  the  individual  is  in  the 
race.  In  a  humble  way,  my  island  shows  the  ad- 
vance of  the  human  kind.  Here  may  be  seen  re- 
sults ;  here  may  be  read  a  history.  Now  comes  a 
day,  and  as  sure  as  the  bones  we  have  exhumed 
show  our  physical  nearness  to  primitive  man,  so 
sure,  also,  the  late  deed  of  hate  and  rage  shows 
how  near  we  may  be  to  him  in  mind.  Picture- 
writing  (in  one  of  the  western  bays)  exists  on 
Promontory.  Hieroglyphics  of  the  rudest  char- 
acter, adorn  the  cliff -fronts.  But  the  "represen- 
tations of  man,  of  animals  and  birds;  the  foot- 
prints and  handmarks;  the  symbols  that  might 
stand  for  the  sun  or  moon,  together  with  the  cir- 
cle, parallel,  straight  or  undulating  lines,  the 
spots  and  other  unintelligible  characters"  upon 
the  Pictographic  Rocks — what  do  they  tell? 
Nothing  that  I,  at  lease,  may  read.  As  light,  up- 
on the  mystery  of  this  mortuary  find,  there  is 
nothing  in  those  scratched  or  chiseled  marks  and 
fading  colors. 

Religion  began,  some  one  has  said,  with  the 
care  of  the  dead.     Veneration  was  born,  one 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  135 

might  add,  when  man  first  raised  the  mound  or 
built  the  cairn.  The  records  on  the  rocks  may 
be  a  boast.  They  may  tell  of  personal  prowess, 
of  tribes  subdued  or  of  warriors  slain.  The 
heaped  up  earth,  the  piled  up  stones  were  for 
another  purpose. 

And  grief?  Here  it  has  been.  Perhaps  there 
gathered  around  this  unsealed  tomb,  some  such 
primitive  beings  as  once  I  saw  by  the  Gila.  Per- 
haps here,  also,  sounded  such  another  chant  as 
then  I  heard.  Such  shrieks  and  wails  as  came 
from  those  aged  mourners ;  those  gaunt  and  wolf- 
eyed  hags,  those  very  dregs  of  a  race,  as,  with 
withered  hands,  they  beat  upon  withered  breasts, 
and  on  their  scant,  white  hair  poured  the  desert 
sand. 

But  what  of  that — the  death  and  sepulture  of 
those  tons  of  horrid  life?  What  is  the  extinction 
of  those  races  of  creatures  of  mighty  strength, 
those  first  crude  thoughts  in  the  creative  power, 
compared  to  the  death  of  one  human  being.  How 
far  less  terrible,  also,  seems  to  us,  the  fierce  and 
cruel  rage  of  those  products  of  primeval  slime, 


136  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

than  does  this  act — this  outburst  of  brutal  pas- 
sion, this  deed  by  a  being  who  holds  intelligence, 
and  enshrines  the  soul ! 

Herbert  Spencer  has  made  a  prophecy.  In  ten 
thousand  years,  emotion  in  the  human  race  will 
be  dead.  Intellectual  automata  will  take  the  place 
of  emotional  man.  To  inspire  a  far-off  dram- 
atist, if  such  there  be,  there  will  be  no  Hamlet  or 
Lear;  no  Juliet  or  Ophelia.  To  impress  the  his- 
torian there  will  be  no  voluptuary  or  bigot;  no 
Sardanapalus  or  Philip  II.  As  no  Boadicea  of 
Britain,  there  will  be  no  Catherine  of  Russia,  no 
Paris,  no  Helen — not  in  the  future  such  ones  as 
of  the  past. 

In  that  day,  slaughter,  such  as  probably  this 
island  has  seen,  shall  be  unknown.  So,  too,  there 
shall  be  no  Hastings,  no  Agincourt,  no  Actium, 
no  Salamis.  No  more  the  clash  of  arms,  the  flow 
of  blood,  the  light  of  flames.  Nimrod,  Xerxes, 
Belshazzar,  Alexander  or  Caesar,  shall  be  as  im- 
possible as  the  petty  chief  who  laid  here.  Fan- 
aticism shall  bring  forth  not  another  Mahomet, 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  137 

or  Tamerlane,  or  Zingis  Khan.  The  years  will 
put  as  great  a  gulf  between  a  Napoleon  and  the 
future  hero,  as  between  the  Corsican  and  this  old 
fighter  of  the  tribes. 

And  then  adieu  to  the  emotional-cyclonic,  to 
the  mental  volcano.  Adieu  to  such  outbursts  of 
ungoverned  passion,  as  this  from  which  we  turn 
away  our  eyes. 


THE  HARVESTS  OF  TIME. 


XII. 
THE  HARVESTS  OF  TIME. 

A  HEAVY  judgment,  it  is  said,  awaits  on 
those  who  covet  dead  men's  riches.    Not 
greed,  however,  has  made   me   take  the 
treasures  of  that  ancient  man,  the  weapons  of 
flint  and  stone,   the   potsherds,   the   wealth   of 
beads  that  now  are  mine. 


Anthropology,  the  knowledge  of  the  palaeon- 
tologist, how  little  interest  I  have  taken  in  these. 
141 


142  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

When  pacing  the  museums,  the  animal  life  of  re- 
mote ages  but  engaged  my  eye  for  moments.  I 
have  rather  avoided  etnographic  exhibits  and  I 
have  looked  with  a  sort  of  angry  surprise  at  the 
huge  remains  of  Dinosaurs,  Uintatheriums,  the 
Atlanto-saurus,  and  the  diminutive  or  colossal 
bones  of  the  primal  horse. 

But  here,  ah !  here  how  different ! 

Here  the  old  bones,  the  fossils,  the  remains  of 
beast  and  man,  hold  fast  the  mind.  All  in  keep- 
ing are  these  things — this  time  of  flame,  the  sun- 
scorched  land,  the  dazzling  brine,  the  skull,  the 
bones,  the  contents  of  the  ancient  cairn,  and 
those  great  earth-skeletons  themselves — the 
jagged  vertebra  of  denuded  mountains. 

Seventy-seven  thousand  pounds,  that  was  the 
estimated  living  weight  of  a  fossil  saurian.  That 
one,  I  mean,  but  recently  exhumed ,  found  among 
the  sedimentary  rocks  in  the  Wyoming  Bad 
Lands.  Recent,  indeed,  in  comparison  with  the 
natural  graveyards  of  the  western  Lais,  are  the 
cemeteries  of  man.  These  desert  conditions  which 
prevail  around  me,  and  in  the  south,  where  the 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  143 

cave-dwellers  lived  in  the  cliffs  of  the  broken 
plateaus —  the  Rock-Rovers'  Land — denote  the 
approach  of  old  age  in  our  planet,  but  evidently 
they  were  the  same  in  the  infancy  of  the  race. 
What  are  the  vast  cities  where,  enclosed  in  their 
clay  coffins,  sleep  the  dead  of  Ur,  the  catacombs 
of  Rome,  the  charnel  houses  of  Mount  Sinai,  the 
Necropolis  of  Thebes,  or  even  the  mummy-pits 
of  Memphis?  Insignificant  when  we  think  of  the 
rock-tombs  of  this  western  land. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  kind  of  legend  gives 
the  true  character  of  a  place.  The  associations 
that  take  root  and  cling  to  a  place  are  in  harmony 
with  its  appearance.  This  is  a  truth  that  was 
known  to  the  ancients  as  well  as  it  is  to  the  mod- 
erns. We  see  it  in  the  Greek  Drama.  It  is 
shown  in  the  fables  of  Olympus  and  Parnassus; 
of  the  Cyclops,  Prometheus  and  the  crags  of 
Caucasus,  and  many  others.  That  in  the  differ- 
ent appearances  of  nature  there  is  the  legend  al- 
ready made  we  feel  as  strongly  in  the  stately 
classics,  as  we  do  in  Shakespeare,  and  the  later 


144  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

writings  of  the  modern  school.  And  this  is  true, 
the  ugly  place  suggests  the  ugly  crime.  Here, 
then,  the  savagery  of  place  and  the  deed  are  one. 

"There  is  a  size,"  thinks  Thomas  Hardy,  "at 
which  ghastliness  begins."  There  are  gulfs  of 
time  in  which  terror  lies.  Far  deeper  gulfs  than 
those  indeed  to  which  the  cairn  belongs.  Can 
one  but  shudder  as  he  looks  into  the  depths 
where  the  "Gorgons,  and  hydras,  and  Chimeras 
dire,"  are  seen,  and,  to  make  a  foreground,  pri- 
meval man,  scarcely  less  monstrous  than  the  life 
beyond. 

Surely  this  land  had  its  legends  already  made. 
The  scenery  of  these  deserts,  the  mountains  and 
plains,  the  heaps  of  stone,  presupposed  the  sav- 
age tribes.  There  already  is  whatever  of  ro- 
mance is  in  the  Ute  and  the  Zuni,  the  Apache  and 
the  dweller  on  the  cliffs.  Must  the  proud  Cau- 
casian draw  some  disturbing  augury  from  his  re- 
lationship with  the  red,  the  yellow,  the  brown  and 
the  black  races.  Are  these  indeed  his  brothers? 
Behold  the  Esquimaux  and  the  native  of  Terra 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  145 

del  Fuego !  I  have  looked  with  a  feeling  akin  to 
contempt  upon  the  Digger  Indian,  and  I  believe 
I  have  shuddered  at  sight  of  that  rock,  in  the 
depths  of  yonder  canon,  where  the  Ute  had 
bound  and  tortured  his  white  captive.  But,  al- 
though the  white  man  has  not  built  a  fire  upon 
the  breast  of  his  foe  and  let  the  red  coals  con- 
sume the  flesh  to  the  heart,  has  he  not  committed 
deeds  as  cruel? 

And  claw  and  talon;  the  envenomed  tooth 
and  that  strength  which  rent  and  tore?  Such 
was  the  law.  The  dragon's  scales  give  place  to 
the  coat  of  mail,  the  armour  chased  or  inlaid 
with  gold.  And  now?  Among  man,  the 
battle-ax,  or  the  blade  of  tempered  steel,  or  the 
weapon  which  lies  near  my  hand.  Degree  more 
than  kind.  But  all  the  land  is  but  a  legend  of  de- 
parted seas,  and  all  the  life  that  dwelt  around  or 
in  them.* 


*The  old  lake  La  Hontan  w^s  named  in  honor  of  Baron 
La  Hontan,  one  of  the  early  explorers  of  the  head-waters 
of  the  Mississippi,  and  was  the  compliment  of  Lake  Bonne- 
ville.  The  former,  situated  mostly  within  the  area  now 
forming  the  State  of  Nevada,  filled  a  depression  along  the 


146  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

The  Harvests  of  Time !  The  gaudy  ephemeral, 
the  terrible-prolonged!  -ZEons  after  aeons,  and 
the  work  goes  on.  Yon  archaean  peak,  snow- 
crowned,  has  roots  in  nether  fire.  Over  and  over, 
sown  and  gathered,  gathered  and  sown.  Behold 
the  sedimentary  rocks — strata  below  strata,  tier 
above  tier,  the  remains  of  a  thousand  fields !  Hor- 
rible crops!  Like  that  which  sprang  from  the 
dragon's  teeth,  creatures  that  fought  and  de- 
stroyed each  other.  Eocene,  Miocene,  Pleiocene 
— stored  in  the  solid  rock,  beneath  the  sub-soils; 
scattered  again  in  desert  sands,  the  harvests  lie. 
Beast  and  bird  and  reptile,  and  still  there  is  no 
end. 

And  the  mighty  birds?  The  Ichthyorius,  and 
the  Hesperorius?  The  reptile-birds  and  the 

western  border  of  the  Great  Basin,  at  the  base  of  the 
Sierra  Nevada;  the  latter  embraced  almost  entirely  the 
present  State  of  Utah,  occupying  a  corresponding  position 
on  the  east  side  of  the  Great  Basin,  at  the  foot  of  the 
Wasatch  Mountains.  Lake  Bonneville  was  19,750  square 
miles  in  area  and  had  a  maximum  depth  of  about  1,000 
feet.  Lake  La  Hontan  covered  8,422  square  miles  of  sur- 
face, and  in  the  deepest  part,  the  present  site  of  Pyramid 
Lake,  was  886  feet  in  depth. 
Russell,  in  Report  of  U.  S.  Geological  History,  1885. 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  147 

bird-like  reptiles?  Their  rule  is  past.  Ended  in 
the  west  is  the  dynasty  of  the  toothed-birds.  Far 
away,  and  it  seems  that  the  birds  and  the  reptiles 
were  one.  Across  the  lands  and  waters  they 
stalked  or  paddled.  And  now  the  Jurassic  seas 
are  dry.  Their  creatures  are  gathered  to  the  har- 
vests of  time.  Have  the  gulls  come  down  from 
those?  With  graceful  wing-motion,  the  white 
gulls  beat  the  air.  With  piercing  cries  they  wheel 
up  to  the  highest  cliff -line  and  there  they  hover. 
They  drift  past  the  trellis,  and  among  my  vines. 
And  there  came  the  snake.  The  reptile  with  en- 
venomed tooth,  the  birds  with  perfected  wing. 
And  there  the  result  of  the  parted  ways. 

"They  were  human  beings" — that  is  the  point. 
What  are  my  struggles,  my  trials  in  redeeming 
the  waste,  compared  to  those  aboriginal  beings? 
My  man  has  a  hundred  resources  not  possessed 
by  the  first  inhabitants.  When  did  they  discover 
the  use  of  corn?  From  whence  came  their  wheat? 
The  instruments  which  Caliban  wields  are  as 
much  superior,  too,  as  are  his  resources  of  mind. 


148  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

His  mattock,  his  spade,  his  pick  and  his  hoe,  how 
far  removed  in  effectiveness  they  are  from  those 
of  palaeolithic  art. 

Already  moss-grown  is  the  mill-wheel  of  the 
pioneer.  The  first  grinding-stones  for  the  alien 
miller  were  quarried  from  the  native  hills.  And 
so  were  the  grinding-stones  that  were  taken  from 
the  pre-historic  mounds.  I  have  listened  to  the 
pioneer  stories  of  the  white-headed  miller,  but 
how  I  should  have  liked  to  hear  the  legend  of 
those  beings  who  bent  over  the  primitive  mills. 

And  the  harvests  to  be?  The  future  stretches 
out  into  the  white  mists  of  the  unknown,  as  the 
past  sinks  back  into  the  blackness  of  the  long  for- 
gotten. 

A  sun-stroke — why  not?  The  thunder  mut- 
ters; the  cumuli  appear;  the  mighty  clouds  grow 
to  a  toppling  height.  Afar  in  the  land  may  be 
seen  the  quiver  of  diffused  lightning,  or  the  jag- 
ged bolt  strikes  to  the  earth  without  rain.  Dark 
from  excess  of  brightness  in  the  August  sky,  the 
denuded  mountains  take  on  that  solemn  hue  that 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  149 

tells  of  middle  summer.  Why  falls  not  the 
moisture  from  yonder  heavens?  Can  one's 
thought  on  these  days  be  sane?  There  are  mo- 
ments when  one  feels  the  motion,  the  whirling 
of  our  planet  through  space;  when  one  grows 
dizzy  with  it,  exhilarated;  capable,  it  seems,  of 
swift,  immeasurable  flight — of  instant  transfer- 
ence beyond  the  suns ! 

The  Plesiosaurus,  the  Pterodactyl,  the  Ich- 
thyosaurus, the  mighty  Iguanodon?  Besides  hav- 
ing seen  those  fossil  remains,  have  I  not,  also, 
seen  the  living  creatures  themselves?  Their  very 
presence,  as  it  were,  in  the  fever  nights  of  Aug- 
ust? What  are  fever-dreams  but  the  heat-loos- 
ened images  of  transmitted  memories?  Our 
earliest  ancestors  may  have  been  contemporary 
with  the  Chinese  dragon.  How  like  to  those 
stony  remains,  in  its  grotesque  hideousness,  is 
that  national  emblem.  Blaze  forth,  O  sun! 
Scorch  with  thy  beams  this  shadeless  isle ;  make 
flash  again  this  shining  sea!  In  millions  of 
wombs  life  quickens ;  in  countless  graves  the  dead 
decay.  "Holy,  Holy  is  the  Lord  God  Almighty !" 


150  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

Shall  we  so  exclaim?  Or  shall  we  watch  the 
Fates  gather  in  the  stars?  Blaze  forth,  O  sun! 
In  the  heart-furnace  the  fever  is  high  as  thine. 


FROM  LIFE  TO  LIFE. 


XIII. 
FROM  LIFE  TO  LIFE. 

IT  is  since  the  advent  of  man,  that  this  moun- 
tain peak  became  an  island.    The  island  be- 
longs, in  the  words  of  science,  to  the  Psycho- 
zoic  Era.    While  butte  and  gully,  cliff  and  plain, 
of  the  surrounding  mainlands,  tell  of  the  mam- 
mals of  every  age,  I  connect  the  island  only  with 
the  race  of  man. 

"In  all  previous  ages,"  says  the  common  text- 
153 


154  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

book,  "there  rules  both  brute  force  and  ferocity. 
In  this  age  alone — Psychozoic — Reason  appears 
as  ruler.  The  order  of  nature  must  be  adjusted 
to  this  keynote.  Therefore,  the  great  ruling  mam- 
mals of  the  previous  age  must  become  extinct, 
and  the  mammalian  class  must  become  subordin- 
ate; noxious  animals  and  plants  must  diminish, 
and  useful  ones  be  preserved." 

Contemporary  wdth  the  mammoth  and  the 
mastodon,  and  the  great  cave  bear,  a  triple  fight, 
then,had  my  man  of  the  cairn.  He  must  fight  with 
the  beasts;  he  must  fight  with  man,  the  equal- 
ly savage  foe,  and  he  must  fight  with  nature,  on 
his  upward  way.  And  besides  those  there  was 
that  other  fight,that  fight  we  have  with  ourselves. 
That  fight  is  with  savage,  perhaps,  as  well  as  it  is 
with  civilized  man,  the  strangest  fight  of  all. 

"Man  a  tool-using  animal" — there  it  lies.  Age 
of  Bronze,  and  Age  of  Stone;  the  rugged  flints 
the  first  of  all.  A  weapon,  not  a  tool,  is  the  great 
stone  battle-ax,  but  a  tool  was  the  rock  with 
which  it  was  made ;  the  rock  which  the  old  savage 
once  held  in  his  hands. 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  155 

Back  of  the  altars  in  the  Kivas,  or  ceremonial 
chambers  of  the  cliff-dwellers,  we  see  deep  pits. 
There  is  the  symbol.  There  is  the  thought  of  the 
Indians.  We  are  children  of  earth ;  creatures  who 
have  struggled — to  the  music  of  the  gods,  strug- 
gled— from  out  the  darkness  of  the  underworld. 
Science,  then,  and  the  theology  of  primitive  man, 
are  in  accord. 

"The  Garden  of  Eden,  the  Sun  standing  still  in 
Gideon !  Who  cares  what  the  fact  may  be,"  cries 
Emerson,  "when  we  have  made  a  constellation  of 
it  to  hang  in  heaven  an  immortal  sign?"  But  let 
us  dream  with  Truth.  In  the  history  of  the  earth 
prior  to  the  advent  of  man,  I  do  take  concern.  I 
am  as  Milton  makes  the  gardener  Adam — one 
who  desires  to  know.  But  I  love  the  dreamer  just 
the  same. 

This  unearthed  crudity  tells  what,  in  time,  all 
crudities  must  be.  But  in  the  Indian  legend  is 
there  not  a  truth?  We  would  climb  to  the  light. 
I  see  the  once-time  reptiles,  that  spread  their 
snowy  wings.  But  it  is  to  the  infinite  that  man 
would  climb. 


156  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

Its  black  limestone  strata  tilted  at  a  sharp  an- 
gle, the  white  tufa  twisted  into  its  lower  crevices ; 
with  its  great  round  boulders,  its  cliff,  its  oolitic 
sands,  my  island  is  pictorially  fine.  But  what  does 
it  tell?  Now  the  island  is  more  than  a  piece  of 
scenery.  It  has  become  a  mystery,  it  is  identified 
with  the  past,  with  the  development  of  human 
life.  This  ground  was  prepared  to  receive  the 
vines,  and  as  I  take  concern  in  the  island  before 
that  time,  I  take  concern  in  the  world  before  the 
advent  of  the  race. 

A  mighty  drama — the  Nature  show !  Wonder- 
ful the  scenery,  ever  shifting,  and  wonderful  the 
actors,  ever  shifting,  too.  Mountains  and  forests, 
seas  and  deserts,  all  different  from  ours.  Imag- 
ination brings  up  the  scenes.  The  surrounding 
landscape  as  it  exists  today  is  but  the  wreck  and 
ruin  of  those  that  have  gone  before. 

Bring  man  upon  the  scene  and  the  sound  of 
strife  is  increased.  The  warfare  is  changed.  Still 
there  is  blood,  but  for  background  there  is  the 
light  of  flames.  No  need  to  imagine,  either,  pre- 
historic or  later  Europe.  No  need  to  see,  after 


\          5s 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  157 

the  primeval  man  and  his  lineage,  the  Saracen 
and  the  Turk,  following  the  Mede  and  the  Per- 
sian; or  to  see  the  countless  battle-fields  from  the 
plains  of  Lybia  to  those  hyperborean  snows  that 
over-top  the  world.  There  has  been  warfare  here. 
The  cattle  browse  over  the  fields  of  strife;  the 
plow  turns  up  the  ancient  arms.  And  here  on  the 
island  is  that  which  has  lain  beneath  my  feet. 

A  somber  picture,  if  we  see  but  the  darker  side. 
No  vision  of  a  Golden  Age,  but  the  forces  of  na- 
ture at  work,  the  bestial  fury,  and  the  struggles 
of  man.  One  terrible  race  succeeds  another.  The 
strong  overcome  the  weak,  or  changed  conditions, 
makes  the  latest  evolvement  the  fittest  to  live. 

But  the  human  species  is  single.  Yet,  like  a 
house  divided,  the  race  has  warred.  As  for  the 
dead  fighter,  his  seed  is  destroyed.  It  is  as  though 
his  tribe  had  never  been.  Instead  of  the  New 
America,  it  may  be  the  Old.  Unlike  the  invader  of 
olden  Europe,  the  Homesteader  destroys  not  one 
civilization  to  make  room  for  another,  but  sup- 
plants the  beast  and  the  barbarian.  He  brings 
civilization  where  it  was  not  before. 


158  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

But  Old  or  New;  from  Eden  or  no,  the  fight 
goes  on.  Though  the  cliff-dweller  and  all  who 
dwelt  up  and  down  this  land  were  of  another  race 
one  touch  of  nature  makes  the  world  akin.  How 
differ  the  living  on  this  island,  from  that  dead 
man  of  the  cairn?  Advanced  in  knowledge,  of 
course,  but  that  flash  of  the  knife  is  still  in  my 
mind. 

Just  as  we  found  them,  lie  the  bones  in  the 
cairn.  Perhaps  I  will  again  seal  the  tomb.  Why 
not  close  down  the  lid  and  replace  the  soil?  Why 
not,  as  of  yore,  let  its  occupant  sleep  on? 

Yet  if  there  be  death,  also  there  is  life ;  if  there 
be  crime  on  the  earth,  above  there  is  the  glorious 
sky.  Over  that  grave  hang  the  fresh,  green 
leaves ;  down  by  the  shore,  the  blue  waters  spar- 
kle. As  I  look  around  my  island,  I  might  imagine 
at  this  hour,  that  death  and  crime  had  never  been. 

Shall  I  stand  appalled  at  the  endless  tragedy? 
Shall  I  listen,  a  universal  mourner,  to  the  eternal 
dirge?  The  Seer  has  forward-gazing  as  well  as 
introspective  eyes. 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  159 

The  condition  of  primitive  man,  so  science  de- 
clares, was  simply  the  condition  of  the  lower  ani- 
mals. Yet  relieved,  it  goes  on  to  tell,  by  a  germ 
instinct  or  capacity  of  progress  which  has  carried 
the  development  of  the  human  race  from  a  low  to 
successively  higher  stages,  from  a  rude  and  bar- 
baric phase  to  a  more  refined  civilization.  And 
therefore — 

For  an  hour  I  lay  on  the  cliff-top.  "Let  the 
dead  bury  the  dead."  Have  I  seized  the  thought? 
There  can  be  no  rest.  How  deep  strike  the  roots 
of  my  vines?  I  have  strange  misgivings  that  they 
may  be  fed  at  an  undesirable  source.  O,  this  flesh, 
this  earth,  this  clay !  O,  the  flowers,  the  fruit,  the 
withered  grass  and  tree !  Legends  of  the  growth 
of  Eden,  the  golden  apples  of  Hesperides — what 
do  they  mean?  In  that  therefore  there  opens  an 
endless  vista.  With  the  germ  of  immortality, 
man  is  everything,  without  it,  nothing. 

Never  will  nature  repeat  her  work.  Never 
again  on  this  planet,  will  she  evolve  those  forms 
of  the  past.  Is  it  not  clear  to  sight  and  under- 
standing, that  nature  moves  constantly  onward 


160  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

to  higher  ideals?  The  face  of  the  land  is  changed; 
the  life  of  the  past  is  gone.  Far,  indeed,  those 
days  when  those  human  remains  that  lie  in  the 
cairn  stood  up  and  walked.  And  longer,  too,  the 
time  one  need  look  backward  to  reach  that  other, 
that  period,  I  mean,  when  life  was  in  those  bones ; 
when  roamed  those  monsters,  whose  stony  joints 
now  sprawl  amid  the  rocks.  All  things  are  dif- 
ferent now  from  that  which  once  they  were,  and 
yet— 

It  is  possible  now  for  one's  self  to  be. 

I  have  uprooted  the  thorn  and  destroyed  the 
cactus.  I  have  seen  those  things  which  made  of 
this  place  a  morgue.  I  have  seen  this  island, 
which  I  homesteaded  for  life,  homesteaded,  as  it 
were,  for  death.  But,  lo!  why  should  I  faint? 
The  sun  that  bleaches  the  bones  of  mountain  or 
man,  reddens  the  blood  in  the  homesteader's 
veins.  And  I  come  to  this  untouched  soil,  de- 
stroy this  coarse  herbage  of  the  desert  for  what? 

To  make  way  for  that  companion  of  civiliza- 
tion— the  vine. 


THE  PAGEANTS  OF  HISTORY. 


XIV. 
THE  PAGEANTS  OF  HISTORY. 

FOR  the  study  of  History,  I  like  those  mod- 
ern charts,  in  which  the  course  of  the  na- 
tions is  represented  as  parallel  but  ever- 
changing  streams.    Better  than  books  are  these 
to  teach  the  correlations.    With  a  chart  before 
us — actual  or  mental — we  feel  history  as  a  whole. 
Then  the  words  London,  Peking,  St.  Petersburg, 
Ispahan,  are  more  than  names.    We  realize  upon 

163 


164  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

humanity  the  effects  of  the  Caucasus,  the  Sahara, 
or  the  Kirghiz  Steppes.  We  understand  Hanni- 
bal upon  the  Alps ;  how  man  makes  now  the  First 
or  the  Eleventh  Crusade,  and  the  varying  for- 
tunes of  India,  from  the  invasion  of  he  of  Mace- 
don,  to  the  time  of  the  English  Conquest. 

And  how  those  streams  of  the  nations  change ! 
Like  a  Nile  or  a  Ganges  we  see  them  come  down 
from  their  source.  Now  they  swell  into  mighty 
rivers;  the  augmentive  power  is  shown  of  a  Ram- 
eses  II,  or  the  Hun,  Attila.  As  nature,  man  has 
his  periods  of  slow  activity,  now  his  bursts  of  sud- 
den passion.  We  see  the  triumphant  nations  pur- 
sue their  lengthened  course,  or  fail;  dwindle  or 
be  lost  like  the  Rhine  in  the  sands  of  Holland,  or 
be  merged  like  the  Amazon,  in  the  greater  sea. 

As  banners  to  an  army,  so  are  portraits  to  his- 
tory. There  is  history  on  the  canvasses  of  the 
great  masters,  as  on  the  pages  of  Tacitus  or  Juve- 
nal. But  history  must  be  re-written.  With  a 
wider  view,  we  must  grasp  the  deeper  law.  Am  I 
a  Homesteader  on  a  desert  island,  and  not  know 
that?  The  present  is  but  an  adjustment  between 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  165 

the  stories  of  the  old  world  and  the  hope  of  the 
new. 

The  Northern  Cliff,  what  happened  that  time 
its  tiers  were  laid?  In  the  history  of  the  human 
family — nothing.  Long  ere  man,  the  architect, 
nature,  was  busy  with  this  rugged  work.  Ages 
before  the  pyramids  of  Cheops,  the  Tower  of 
Babel,  this  work  went  forward.  Here  nature 
quarried,  split  and  carved.  Before  the  race  this 
cliff  was  built.  That  natural  column,  supporting 
the  living  rock,  stood  thus  ere  was  conceived  the 
Doric.  This  island  was  fashioned,  ere  were  be- 
gun the  rock  temples  of  Elephanta,  or  at  Aboo 
Simbel,  and  the  mighty  monolith  on  its  top  lay 
there,  ere  was  carved  the  twin  colossi — the  vocal 
Memnon  and  his  silent  companion,  that  have 
watched,  now,  for  a  million  times,  the  sunrise  on 
the  marshy  plain  of  Thebes. 

A  different  source  I  would  need  to  learn  the  na- 
ture-epic of  this,  my  home. 

That  archaeological  activity  of  these  our  days; 
that  restlessness  of  spirit  which  makes  men  exca- 


166  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

vate  through  the  layers  of  earth  gathered  above 
the  remains  of  deserted  cities  of  Europe  and 
Asia;  scoop  away  the  sands  of  Africa  from  about 
the  statue's  feet,  or  fell  the  trees  that  shroud  the 
ruined  buildings  in  the  woods  of  Yucatan,  what 
is  it?  Is  it  other  than  the  natural  accompani- 
ment of  the  modern  scientific  thought  and  the  de- 
sire to  look  forward  into  the  far  unknown?  The 
lonely  watch-towers  that  stand  on  the  rocks  to 
the  south  of  this  land,  do  they  not  tell  that  war- 
fare has  been  carried  on  between  the  race  who 
peopled  them  and  those  who  dwelt  in  the  cliffs? 
Pageants  there  have  been  around  them,  but  not 
those  of  history. 

Give  up  your  secrets,  O  island  walls  of  stone! 

Ere  the  cairn  was  built,  may  have  fallen  yon 
rock.  It  may  have  gathered  lichens  ere  primal 
man  walked  naked  the  earth.  As  now  it  lies,  it 
has  lain  through  the  ages  ere  the  leaf  cr  the  skin 
of  beast  was  used  as  a  covering  of  shame.  While 
the  race  has  learned  to  serve  its  pride  with  other 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  167 

than  that  which  we  found  in  the  cairn ;  while  the 
bead  of  flint,  and  the  face  ornaments  of  stone 
gave  place  to  the  polished  gems  and  while  that 
shaggy  covering  from  creatures  as  fierce  as 
themselves,  gave  place  to  the  richest  product  of 
loom  and  mine.  Of  this  island  what  could  the 
old  block  tell? 

Perhaps  in  our  work  we  destroyed  good  evi- 
dence. The  sifters  and  I  have  been  to  blame. 
The  surveyors,  too,  have  done  as  much.  In  the 
clearing  of  ground,  in  the  building  of  walls,  and 
in  the  piling  up  of  stones  to  serve  as  boundary 
lines,  we  have  obliterated  history.  What  a  fast- 
ness is  the  Northern  Cliff!  Scale  its  front  who 
could?  It  is  inaccessible,  save  from  one  point, 
and  that  is  up  the  narrow  depression  where  the 
skull  was  found.  There  grew  my  vines  and  from 
there  I  have  removed  the  stones. 

How  stupid  I  have  been !  With  my  new  light, 
how  easily  it  is  for  me  to  see.  Those  stones  were 
placed  with  instinctive  cunning.  Certain  of  the 
arts  are  primeval.  I  doubt  if  a  modern  engineer 


168  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

could  have  placed  those  simple  means  of  defense 
to  a  better  advantage.  Where  they  had  lain  so 
long,  I  replace,  mentally,  the  stones.  Thereby  I 
learn  the  skill  of  the  ancient  man. 

From  the  cliff-top,  how  well  one  might  hurl 
rocks  upon  a  foe  beneath !  These  round  boulders 
and  stones,  what  missiles  they  are.  How  they 
would  leap  and  bound,  and  destroy  all  life  in  their 
path.  I  know,  now,  the  reason  of  those  globes  on 
the  island  crest,  and  why  they  were  carried  there 
from  the  Southwest  Bay,  and  also  why  so  many 
lay  scattered  at  the  foot  of  the  cliff.  So  they 
have,  or  had  lain,  for  what  ages,  since  the  end  of 
a  battle? 

I  close  my  eyes  and  see  all  the  sickening  de- 
tails of  an  old  time  slaughter.  Women  and  chil- 
dren have  been  thrown  from  this  height.  The 
island  has  resounded  with  the  shriek  of  despair. 
I  hear  yells  of  triumph  and  see  the  arrows  fly. 
The  owner  of  the  skull  may  have  fallen  in  single 
combat,  or  during  some  general  melee.  Perhaps 
he  defended,  in  some  hand  to  hand  struggle,  each 
foot  of  the  slope.  He  may  have  died  covered 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  169 

with  wounds,  a  primitive  and  unchronicled  hero. 

Why  not  a  savage  Hector  or  Achilles  here? 
An  Ajax?  The  tribe  may  have  known  its  Cas- 
sandra, too.  But  on  this  island  might  have  been 
reversed  the  siege  of  Troy.  The  cairn  might  be 
that  of  some  victorious  Priam.  Perhaps  long 
before  the  Trojan  days,  those  who  sought  refuge 
here  drove  back  their  savage  foes.  The  be- 
sieged on  this  pile  of  rock,  had  they  supply  of 
food  and  water,  might  have  laughed  at  a  besieg- 
ing force. 

But  this  slab,  on  which  I  have  sat  to  read — 
might  it  not  have  slipped  from  its  place,  that  time 
the  printing-press  was  being  invented.  Here  is 
one  whose  fall  might  correspond  in  date  to  that 
auspicious  Friday  on  which  Columbus  discov- 
ered a  new  world;  perhaps  the  landing  of  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers:  and  this  other,  whose  fractured 
edges  are  still  so  bright,  the  entry  of  the  Pio- 
neers into  this  western  valley. 

Very  different  is  the  study  of  history  from  the 
making  of  history.  To  contemplate  the  events  of 


170  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

the  past,  and  to  be  one  in  the  shaping  of  those 
of  the  present  bring  about  every  opposite  con- 
ditions of  mind.  To  be  spectator  merely  instead 
of  actor,  even  in  the  present,  is  to  view  history 
from  very  different  standpoints.  And  to  contem- 
plate the  certainty  of  past  time  and  to  imagine 
the  possibilities  of  the  future  is  to  know  the  very 
poles  of  thought. 

Will  either  of  these  mountain  passes  be  a  sec- 
ond Thermopylae?  Will  either  of  these  canons 
be  a  Pass  of  Glencoe?  The  spectacles  of  war 
have  had  their  day,  and  what  need  of  another 
St.  Gothard,  a  Schipka,  or  western  Gettysburg? 
As  one  mountain  peak  may  centralize  quite  an- 
other set  of  landscapes  than  does  another  so  in 
the  ages,  with  history,  some  peak-like  man.  But 
with  the  warrior?  O  pass  away  such  scenes  of 
the  modern  world.  Such  scenes  as  those  to  which 
the  island  massacre  was  but  a  prelude ! 

What  will  be  the  names  of  the  yet  unfounded 
cities?  Or  those  that  stand,  through  what  course 
will  they  run?  What  far-off  moralist  shall  look 
on  their  decay?  They  will  have  their  Marius 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  171 

and  Petrarch  as  did  Carthage  and  the  City  of  the 
Seven  Hills.  Some  one  will  fill  a  part  to  them, 
such  as  imagination  conjured  up  in  the  New 
Zealander  seated  upon  the  broken  stones  of  Lon- 
don Bridge. 

These  mountains  look  down  and  wait. 

The  croak  of  the  raven  I  shall  hear  no  more* 
For  all  his  tricks  Devil  has  paid  the  debt.  An 
extra  amount  of  spite  and  sullenness  foretold  the* 
end.  Perhaps  the  unfortunate  bird  carried  with- 
in his  body,  an  unextracted  shot,  and,  old  as  he. 
was,  this  may  have  fretted  his  life  away.  Devil's; 
or  Raven's  Mound  will  be  a  new  island  landmark. 


AND  LO!  THE  PLAGUES. 


"L 


XV. 
AND  LO!  THE  PLAGUES. 

ATAT  anguis  in  herba."    Yes,  that  is 
true.  But  here  my  foes  come  out  of  the 
dust.    Air  and  water,   too,    are   filled 
with  the  ministers  of  pain. 

It  is  remarkable,  the  number  of  lizards  that 
have  so  quickly  appeared.  Among  volcanic  or 
tufa  rocks,  so  hot  these  days  that  they  almost 
blister  the  hand  if  touched,  they  absorb  com- 
fort and  happiness  and  everywhere  the  erratic 

175 


176  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

tracks  of  the  numerous  reptiles  make  strange 
hieroglyphics  upon  the  burning  sands.  Twice 
within  the  week,  I  have  met  that  terrible  Arach- 
nid, the  black  tarantula.  He  lives  in  the  crevices 
of  these  rocks.  Nor  is  this  all.  An  incredible 
number  of  gnats  infest  the  shore,  and  where  a 
few  stunted  bushes  stand  near  the  water's  edge, 
they  are  covered  thick  with  a  veil  of  cobwebs; 
the  big,  fat  spiders  making  the  be>  ch  there  a 
place  to  avoid. 

I  have  decided  on  a  scorpion  hunt.  The  first 
thing  which  I  saw  on  awakening  in  my  hammock 
this  morning,  was  one  of  the  half-grown  crea- 
tures. As  the  villainous  intruder  passed  across  a 
corner  of  my  bamboo  pillow,  and  but  a  few 
inches  from  my  face,  it  was  a  startling  sight.  Yes- 
terday one  of  the  same  objectionable  neighbors 
climbed  to  a  place  at  the  board.  A  wicked  ap- 
pearing scamp  he  was,  as  he  afterward  lay,  a  pris- 
oner and  with  sting  erected,  at  the  bottom  of  a 
china  bowl.  The  guano-sifters  will  join  in  the 
sport.  They,  too,  have  received  similar  and  re- 
peated visits.  Our  brotherhood  sympathies  with 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  177 

the  natural  owners  of  this  island  do  not  lead  us 
so  far  as  to  make  us  willing  to  risk  a  poisonous 
stab  in  the  dark. 

Hard  is  the  Homesteader's  lot  these  meridian 
days. 

And  thirst?  This  sea  of  brine  would  let  one 
die  of  thirst*  "Ropy,"  is  the  description  that  my 
companions  give  of  the  water  in  their  covered 
barrels,  ana*  but  little  succor  would  there  be,  if  my 
supply  of  fresh  water  failed,  in  the  small  con- 
densing apparatus  that  foresight  made  me  bring. 
The  large  percentage  of  salt  in  this  surrounding 
sea,  would  make  of  condensation  a  difficult  mat- 
ter. Within  the  circle  of  horizon  visible  from 
my  door-step,  there  have  been  happenings.  O, 
those  poor  sheep  that  perished  on  Fremont  Isl- 
and ;  that  castaway  on  Church !  More  bitter,  in- 
deed, this  sea,  than  the  Wells  of  Marah. 

Years  ago,  but  the  bones  are  there.  The  silt 
and  tifa  half  cover  them  and,  in  time,  they  may 
become  fossils  too.  There  is  a  spring  on  Fre- 
mont Island,  or  at  times  there  is.  It  flows  forth 


178  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

amid  rock  beneath  a  steep  bank  on  the  northern 
shore,  and,  as  at  certain  seasons  the  island  also 
bears  an  abundance  of  fine,  sweet  bunch-grass, 
the  sheep  had  been  left  there  for  winter  pastur- 
age. The  change  in  the  sea's  surface  varies  at 
times,  and  the  spring  is  often  buried  beneath  the 
waves.  The  poor  sheep,  victims  of  a  short-sight- 
ed shepherd,  thus  died  a  death  of  torture.  The 
"rise"  had  mingled  the  fresh  water  ,W  the  spring 
with  that  of  the  brine. 

Had  it  not  been  for  ''he  depredations  of  a  wild 
beast,  the  castaway,  on  Church  Island,  would 
have  perished  as  did  the  sheep.  Thrown  on  the 
western  shore,  his  boat  driven  upon  the  rocks 
and  torn  apart,  this  solitary  voyager,  not  know- 
ing the  island  to  be  inhabited— on  its  eastern  side 
— was  in  a  sorry  plight.  He  passed  the  day,  fol- 
lowing the  wreck,  in  searching  for  water  along 
the  western  shore;  a  shore  where  not  a  drop  of 
fresh  water  is  to  be  found.  By  the  merest  chance 
he  was  rescued  from  a  painful  death,  not  on  the 
first  day,  however,  but  on  the  second,  when  he 
was  in  an  exhausted  and  delirious  condition.  A 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  179 

wild-cat  had  committed  repeated  trespass  upon 
the  poultry  of  the  Island  Farm,  and  a  couple  of 
young  men  were  in  quest  of  the  thief.  Their  as- 
tonishment at  finding  an  unknown  man — a  cast- 
away— lying  alone  on  the  hills,  apparently  in  a 
dying  condition,  was  as  great  as  their  appearance 
upon  the  scene  was  fortunate. 

As  for  the  sifters,  they  have  made  some  char- 
coal. A  stranded  cedar  and  some  Gunnison  clay 
were  the  means.  Prevention  is  better  than  cure, 
and  it  is  better  late  than  never. 

Generous  boon !  My  place  of  refuge  is  in  "The 
Tub."  I  enjoy  to  the  full  the  delights  of  the 
bath.  When  on  land  it  seems  that  one  must  suf- 
focate, that  in  the  intolerable  noon-day  the  rocks 
must  melt,  there  is  comfort  in  the  cooling  waves. 
Even  the  strength  of  the  brawny  sifter  succumbs 
to  this.  Like  myself  he  lives  as  much  in  the  wa- 
ter as  he  does  on  the  land.  What  a  great  sani- 
tarium this  sea  must  become !  Let  the  sun  scorch 
never  so,  let  the  acrid  waters  shrink  up  the  grass 


180  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

and  herbage ;  let  it  breed  the  gnat,  or  strew  the 
beach  with  offensive  larvae,  yet  in  its  embrace 
there  is  renewed  strength,  a  tonic  for  mind  and 
body.  To  the  tired  limbs  it  brings  a  rest,  and  to 
the  weary  brain  repose. 

And  here  is  "The  Tub :"  distant  from  the  hut, 
some  five  hundred  yards  or  so,  at  the  base  of  a 
square  piece  of  masonry,  an  abutment  of  the 
Northern  Cliff,  where,  when  the  sea  is  rough,  and 
the  wind  from  the  north,  the  eddies  swirl,  there  is 
worn  in  the  rock  a  smooth,  round  basin.  Other 
basins  of  a  similar  kind  are  to  be  found  along 
the  shore,  but  this  one  remains  my  favorite.  It 
is  some  twenty-five  feet  across,  and  about  five 
feet  deep,  and  the  bottom  is  covered  with  a  layer 
of  white  and  shining  sand. 

A  delicious  place ;  one  that  annuls  the  physical 
sufferings  of  these  trying  days.  There  I  go,  and 
there  I  sport  at  my  ease.  The  strong  brine  of  the 
sea  has  a  tendency  to  float  one's  limbs  to  the  sur- 
face, so  that  the  sensation  produced  when  one  is 
in  the  water  is  always  as  novel  as  pleasant.  When 
the  sea  is  in  any  wise  calm,  it  is  an  easy  matter  to 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  181 

recline  thus  for  an  indefinite  length  of  time;  but 
when  the  sea  is  rough,  it  is  very  difficult  to  make 
headway  in  swimming  against  even  the  smallest 
of  waves. 

I  enjoy  the  bath.  Somnolence  broods  over  land 
and  sea.  The  hot  air  swoons ;  the  motionless  water 
lies  pale  and  unsullied ;  not  a  troublesome  gnat  is 
abroad  from  the  shore.  The  gulls,  whom  I  dis- 
turbed as  I  walked  through  their  colony,  have 
sunk  back  to  their  nests;  some  ten  score  or  more 
of  the  startled  birds  who  took  flight  to  the  bay, 
now  float  with  heads  below  wings.  A  couple  of 
lizards  come  out  from  under  a  stone,  and,  sleep- 
ing, bask  on  the  sands. 

What  is  this?  Across  the  distance  there  comes 
a  change.  The  horizon  is  melted  away;  the 
mountains  are  blurred;  the  hills  and  promon- 
tories swim  in  air.  The  farthest  chains  of  moun- 
tains appear  to  part,  to  become  peaked  islands. 
The  sky  seems  water,  the  water  sky.  Substance 
and  shadow  are  indistinguishable.  Do  I  wake  or 
dream? 

It  is  the  beginning  of  a  noon-day  mirage. 


THE  AUTUMNAL  EQUINOX, 


XVI 
THE  AUTUMNAL  EQUINOX. 

RAIN,  rain !    Once  more  a  troglodyte.     In- 
cessantly the  water  runs  off  the  roof.  Now 
one  can  know  the  gloom  of  mind  in  which 
the  cave-dweller  passed  the  long  winter  months, 
and  with  what  reluctance   he   relinquished   the 
companionship  and  wild  sports  of  his  fellows,  and 
retreated,  like  the  lower  animals,  to  his  rocky 
den.    Like  a  wetted  pebble  is  the  rain-drenched 
185 


186  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

island.  The  bushes  drip,  the  porous  ground  is 
dark  and  softened,  the  sands  of  the  beach  are 
white  and  shining.  Rain,  rain !  Ever  the  rush  of 
the  lateral  rain. 

What  a  deluge  is  this!  A  grand  phenomenon 
— the  coming  of  the  clouds,  the  exalted  parts  of 
the  earth  levelled,  torn  down  by  the  omnipotent 
sea,  and  carried  to  rest  for  aeons,  ere  by  earth- 
quake shock,  or  the  slow  upheaval — the  balanc- 
ing of  things — it  may  be  again  thrown  up,  new 
ranges  of  Sierra  Nevada  or  Wasatch  Mountains, 
to  be  again  denuded,  worn  down  into  decrepti- 
tude,  like  the  old,  old  hills,  that  lie  between  the 
Canadas,  and  the  Northeastern  states.  Did  such 
rainfalls  precede  the  sinking  of  lost  Atlantis? 
These  down-pours  of  water  are  often  accompan- 
ied along  the  coast  by  earthquake  shocks  which 
cause  a  trembling  of  the  earth  for  thousands  of 
miles. 

Despite  my  crotchets,  and  they  are  not  a  few, 
I  am  much  indebted  to  my  friends,  the  sifters.  To 
enliven  the  tedium  of  these  days  is  a  task  not 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  187 

easy.  Not  without  weariness  are  clouds,  how- 
ever grand,  to  be  watched  forever.  Man  is  natur- 
ally a  gregarious  animal,  and  such  weather  as 
this,  if  nothing  else,  would  drive  him  to  social 
intercourse.  The  sifters,  wise  men,  pass  a  merry 
time.  The  day  of  their  departure  is  close  at  hand. 
Their  work  for  the  season  is  ended,  and  at  any 
moment  the  schooner  may  appear,  and  then  an 
end  to  all  diversion.  In  the  meantime,  their  up- 
roarious mirth  makes  the  rafters  ring. 

Some  new  Ostade  (the  elder),  might  find  sub- 
jects for  his  pencil  in  the  sifters'  cabin.  A  fol- 
lower of  the  pupil  of  Hals,  or  Van  Schendel: 
would  paint  well  those  scenes.  A  most  pictur- 
esque phase  of  labor  I  have  seen  here  daily,  and! 
no  less  interesting  are  the  men  in  idleness.  The 
out  door  labor  removed  the  men  from  vulgar 
commonplace,  and  now  the  night  scenes  of  pas- 
time are  quite  as  good.  Nature  composes  in  the 
sifters'  cabin,  a  hundred  pieces,  each  one  better 
than  those  of  the  Little  Masters.  The  sturdy  or 
lank  forms  of  the  men;  their  eager  faces,  those 
who  play  the  game,  the  onlookers,  the  drowsers, 


188  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

the  candle  flame — of  such  are  the  pictures  made. 
And  in  the  background,  the  ruddy  reflections  on 
the  smooth  rim  or  bottom  of  pan  or  kettle,  the 
shining  of  tin  or  copper  against  the  brown  black- 
ness of  bituminous  shadow. 

Grand  are  the  statements  of  science.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  weather  forecast.  This  is  a 
phase  over  the  Inland  Sea  of  "a  storm  that  is  to 
shake  the  western  mountains  and  strew  the  At- 
lantic coast  with  wreck." 

The  Wasatch,  loftiest  of  all  these  surrounding 
mountains — 

Place  where  the  adverse  winds  meet  and  where 

He 
In  wait  the  thunder-clouds — 

have  bred  upon  their  summits,  or  attracted  toward 
them,  the  greatest  number  of  local  or  wandering 
storms.  A  station  of  vantage  this!  The  Alpha 
and  Omega  of  many  a  storm  I  see,  and  how  the 
mountains  turn  pale  or  dark  by  turns,  as  the  sun 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  189 

and  storm  alternate  across  the  expectant  land. 

It  is  a  commonplace,  a  simile  worn  out,  to 
compare  a  sky-storm  to  a  human  battle.  Who, 
indeed,  on  seeing  the  strife,  can  escape  the 
thought.  There  is  a  passion  in  the  clouds  them- 
selves. 

In  the  Hidden  Valley,  when  the  sky  above  was 
clear,  I  knew  of  approaching  storms  by  infallible 
signs.  There  was  the  soft  clashing  of  those  green 
and  silver  shields,  the  leaves  of  the  aspens;  or 
there  were  the  dog-fish  congregated  in  groups 
along  the  lake  shores,  their  black,  ugly  muzzles 
resting  upon  some  half-sunken  log,  or  bit  of 
shale,  as  with  their  stupid  eyes  they  stared  up  at 
the  blue.  Then  rose  the  clouds.  The  cumuli, 
those  giants  of  the  summer  sky,  looked  over  the 
mountain  walls.  With  their  mighty  shadows, 
they  threw  deep  gloom  over  pine  forest  and  lake, 
they  darkened  the  birth-place  of  a  hundred 
streams.  Then  the  thunder  crashed,  the  light- 
ning bridged  the  high  valley  from  side  to  side, 
and,  anon,  came  the  rush  of  the  wind  and  rain. 

Here  I  mark  the  coming  of  the   storms;   the 


190  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

progress  of  the  clouds  along  the  parallel  or  fore- 
shortened ranges.  I  mark  the  grand  charges,  the 
objective  points.  Across  the  valleys  sweep  armies 
of  cloud,  they  rush  along  the  crests  and  through 
the  canons,  or  whole  battalions  sink  into  cross  ra- 
vines. The  hosts  of  cloud  assault  the  mountain 
bulwarks,  as  the  hosts  of  men  attack  some  huge 
redoubt.  I  see  some  height  taken,  lost,  retaken, 
and  lost  again — the  contention  around  the  cores, 
the  central  clusters  of  highest  peaks.  Separate 
storms  pass  not,  but  live  and  die  on  the  place  of 
their  birth.  Now  the  Wasatch  and  the  Onaqui, 
stand  white.  Here  and  there,  also,  some  ambi- 
tious peak  of  the  Raft  River  and  lower  ranges 
has  caught  the  snow.  The  great  branches  of  the 
Rockies  have  first  gathered  the  autumn  clouds  on 
their  crest,  and  then  passed  them  eastward  to 
drench  with  their  storms  the  far-gradients  and 
plains. 

Dramatic  those  clouds  and  spectacular,  too. 
After  passing  from  the  Pacific  waves,  over  the 
sands  of  Arizona,  and  the  mountains  of  the  coast, 
the  storms  of  the  equinox,  arrive  here  with  a  dif- 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  191 

ference.  These  rains,  warm  at  the  Gulf,  or  out  on 
the  western  main,  are  cold  and  sleety  here 
through  contact  with  the  Sierra  peaks.  Like  a 
mighty  wall,  as  if  one  of  these  mountain  ranges 
should  suddenly  come  forward,  they  come — the 
clouds — hurried  by  the  west  winds  from  the  sea. 
Only  the  cloud-wall  is  higher,  steeper,  even,  than 
these  mountains  of  stone.  One  looks  upward,  on 
their  near  approach,  at  an  angle  of  sharp  per- 
spective along  their  awful  front — how  grandly 
carved — to  the  vast  facade.  Sometimes  the  move- 
ment is  made  en  masse.  The  sky  is  left  clear  be- 
hind the  storms  without  leaving  such  clouds  as 
now  I  see,  exhausted,  dead  in  the  hollow  twi- 
light, along  each  mountain  range. 

These  reactionary  storms,  where  have  they 
been?  From  the  west  to  the  east,  from  the  east 
to  the  west !  From  the  plains  they  return  to  the 
heights.  There  is  grandeur  in  recurrence; 
grandeur  in  the  swing  of  the  pendulum.  Back 
from  the  Rockies,  they  come.  Back  from  the 
Great  Divide.  Back  from  the  Wind  River  peaks ; 


192  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

from  the  Sangre  de  Christo,  the  Medicine  Bow, 
the  Uinta  Range.  Back  again  from  the  Was- 
atch  to  the  neighboring  Oquirrhs;  back  to  the 
Onaqui,  to  the  Tintic;  across  the  Raft-River,  the 
Humboldt,  the  Sierra  Nevada,  and  so  once  more 
to  the  western  main.  Wasting  their  strength 
from  day  to  day,  here  a  little,  there  a  little,  but 
keeping  ever  onward;  along  the  course  of  the 
Platte,  over  the  Black  Hills,  the  high  plateaus 
and  the  sky-hung  valleys.  A  retreat  grand  as 
that  of  the  ten  thousand  Greeks.  A  storm  ad- 
vance that  covered  a  continent;  a  retreat  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  coast. 

A  certain  average,  I  have  forgotten  what,  in  a 
hundred  years,  the  geologists  say,  the  Wasatch 
are  lifted  up.  So  much  again  the  denuding  agen- 
cies waste  them  down.  Two  months  only — July 
and  August — that  snow  has  not  flown  on  the 
range.  This  snow  of  the  later  equinox,  will  be  al- 
most as  transient,  no  doubt,  as  was  that  of  June. 
That  new  covering  of  white  will  have  disap- 
peared ere  the  snow  that  is  to  remain  will  fall. 
Never,  I  believe,  are  the  ravines  in  the  upper 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  193 

Wasatch  free  from  snow;  the  waters  follow  the 
tracks  of  the  ancient  glaciers. 

There  rush  the  waters  still.  Under  the  clouds 
and  unceasing  rain,  every  ravine  has  its  roaring 
stream.  Across  the  canon  roads  is  piled  the  loos- 
ened rock.  Though  the  clouds  may  open  now 
and  again,  they  close  once  more.  Motionless  is 
the  water  of  the  sea,  seen  across  the  wet  rock 
tops  and  the  puddled  sands.  Nor  is  there  hope 
yet  for  a  change  to  fair  skies. 

Under  the  ridges  of  iron-gray  stone ;  by  banks 
and  slopes  of  crumbling  shale;  through  narrow 
gates,  giving  scarce  room  for  the  augmented 
streams  and  the  mountain  trail;  by  isolated 
peaks,  girt  with  rocky  belts,  or  misty  with  groves 
of  pine;  beneath  strangely  twisted  mountains, 
broken  by  craggy  glens,  and  by  stooping  cliffs,  I 
picture  the  waters  come.  I  see  them  sleep  in  the 
lakes  and  plunge  down  the  mighty  slopes; 

Where  the  bald-eagle,  dweller  mid  the  scene, 
With  ruffled  breast  and  wings  aslant,  serene 
Rises  to  meet  the  storm ; 


194  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

and  where  in  dizzy  swiftness,  too,  they  tear 
across  smooth  slabs  of  granite,  or  are  themselves 
overhung  by  valley  trees,  or  time-worn  boulders 
of  colossal  size — the  Weber,  the  Cottonwoods, 
the  Bear,  the  Provo  (Timpanogas),  and  all  the 
rest  of  them. 


MY  HOMESTEAD  HORIZONS. 


XVII. 
MY  HOMESTEAD  HORIZONS. 

A  MIGHTY  drowsiness  is  on  the  land.    The 
Harvest-Moon — the    Indian's    Moon    of 
Falling     Leaves  —  has     supplanted     the 
Moons  of  Fire.  Dream-like  has  become  my  island. 
Ruddy,  like  a  weary  and  belated  sun,  comes  up 
the  Autumn  moon,  and  like  a  vast  Koh-i-noor,  the 
sun  itself  is  blurred  and  yellow.    Haze-enwrapped 
are   the   distant   Wasatch;    through  deepening 

197 


198  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

shades  of  saddened  violet,  the  Onaqui  lapse  into 
melancholia.  The  western  headlands,  the  jutting 
promontories,  appear  as  if  cut  from  dim,  orange 
crape,  or  maroon-colored  velvet.  Wistful  and 
vague  stand  the  peaked  islands,  and  shell-like  is 
the  gleam  of  the  far-stretched  brine. 

One  more  turn,  and  the  present  richness  of  the 
time  will  be  gone.  This  heavy  lassitude,  this  vol- 
uptuous sadness,  this  wondrous  effect  of  sensuous 
color,  comes  not  entirely  from  a  local  cause,  but 
comes  as  much  from  the  low,  autumnal  sun.  In 
the  heavens  there  is  a  transfiguration,  and  the 
transfiguration  extends  to  earth.  Always  there 
are  the  same  great  stretches  of  water  around,  al- 
ways the  same  dreary  and  monotonous  hills ;  ever 
the  same  strange  walls  of  rock,  and  ever  the  same 
wild  peaks  in  clustered  multitudes.  But  how  the 
seasons  and  the  great  sun  play  with  them !  They 
are  ever  the  same,  yet  never  the  same ;  eternal  yet 
evanescent,  playthings  with  time  and  the  ele- 
ments. 

How  the  whole  scene  glows!  Through  my 
glass,  I  bring  near  such  especial  spots  of  bright- 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  199 

ness,  as  attract  the  eye,  and  find  them  to  be  lone- 
ly aspens  or  spring-fed  maples.  From  this  spot  I 
watched  the  spring  climb  up  the  heights,  and 
now  I  have  seen  the  autumn  come,  as  it  were, 
from  the  sky. 

One  peculiarity  of  my  position  here,  is  to  find 
myself  within  a  circle  of  changing  colors,  and  to 
see  the  distant  landscape  smolder  with  ruddy 
tones,  and  then,  so  it  seemed,  the  flames  burst 
forth.  The  high  foliage  changed  its  hues  in  an 
hour,  the  circle  of  frost-made  colors,  ever  ex- 
panded downward  and  around.  Now  it  kindled 
the  chaparral  on  some  mountain  side  or  a  highest 
hill-top.  It  crowded  down  through  the  canons, 
those  ways  of  the  hills,  and  paused  only  when  it 
had  invaded  the  lower  valleys  and  reached  the 
water's  edge. 

Nowhere  in  Europe  can  one  see  among  the 
trees  that  abandon  to  glory,  that  ostentation,  that 
carnival,  that  very  Saturnalia  of  color,  which  may 
be  seen  in  autumn  among  the  American  woods. 

Autumn  is  to  the  seasons,  as  twilight  to  the 


200  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

day.  Both  work  a  similar  effect  on  the  mind. 
Objectively  the  artist  sees  nature;  subjectively 
the  poet  sees  it;  and  the  philosopher,  perhaps, 
sees  it  both  ways.  Rather  "1'Allegro,"  than  "II 
Penseroso,"  of  landscape  should  be  seen  by  the 
pioneer.  The  morning  phase  of  intellect,  rather 
than  that  of  evening,  should  be  possessed  by  him 
who  would  begin  "The  Course  of  Empire."  But, 
at  times,  the  splendor  of  the  American  woods,  is 
a  sort  of  paean,  a  glorification — an  apotheosis  of 
the  year,  that  leaves  no  place  for  sadness. 

I  recall  a  wood:  Primeval  trees  were  there; 
oaks  so  vast  that  each  one  seemed  a  grove.  And 
stubborn  hickories,  too,  the  noble  walnut,  and  the 
high-reaching  pecan.  Mighty  grape-vines  made 
their  fantastic  coils  amid  the  tree  trunks,  shot 
straight  into  the  dense,  drooping  masses  of  foli- 
age, or  hung  in  swing-like  loops.  There  at  noon- 
day, one  heard  the  sleep-inducing  snore  of  the 
tree-toad ;  beheld  at  sundown  the  myriad,  drifting 
fire-flies,  or  heard,  amid  the  dusky  shadows,  the 
Whip-poor- Will,  or  that  wild,  shrill  music,  the 
twilight  clamor  of  the  Katy-dids. 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  201 

One  felt  in  that  wood  the  gloom,  as  well  as  the 
glory,  of  the  autumn  time.  How  chilly  the  sap 
that  flowed  downward  again  through  the  rugged 
trunks  and  limbs;  returning  with  the  loosened 
leaves  whence  it  had  been  drawn — where  the 
progenitors  of  the  aged  trees  mouldered  to 
touch-wood  in  the  virgin  soil,  or  decayed  in  gath- 
ered slime,  beneath  the  surface  of  the  pools. 

Contrasted  with  that  lowland  growth,  how 
meagre  this  mountain  foliage.  I  miss,  too,  the 
Alleghanies,  the  huge,  old  beech  trees,  the  hem- 
locks and  tamaracks  of  the  eastern  hills,  or,  in  the 
absence  of  these,  the  live  oaks  and  madrones  that 
fret  with  their  roundness  the  Sierra  slopes.  In 
autumn  all  the  resplendence  of  the  sunset  skies 
lie  on  the  woods.  But,  ah !  it  must  be  confessed, 
it  wants  in  spirituality.  It  no  longer  makes  us 
think  of  the  Cherubim,  the  wings  of  archangels, 
but  rather  of  the  earthly  garments  of  prelates  and 
kings. 

Up  in  the  mountain  hollows,  there  is  now  a 
wonderful  sight.  It  is  the  frost-stricken  leaves  of 


202  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

the  aspens.  Backed  by  dark  spruce,  or  sub-alpine 
fir,  nothing  can  be  more  lovely.  Seen  in  the 
groves,  each  tree  is  a  perfect  thing,  a  picture  in 
itself.  The  eye  takes  cognizance  of  each  silver- 
white  shaft,  each  erratic  branch,  the  mottlings  of 
rent  and  lichen,  and  each  separate  gold  leaf,  as  it 
quivers  against  the  firs.  But  now  I  see  from  the 
synthetic  standpoint.  Soon  all  that  brilliance  will 
be  stripped  from  the  trees  and  made  sodden  upon 
the  ground.  The  rocks  at  the  entrance  to  the  ra- 
vines and  glens,  and  at  the  canon  mouths,  will  be 
covered  a  foot  thick  with  the  drifted  leaves. 

It  was  through  its  pictures  of  autumn  that 
American  art  was  first  noticed  abroad.  I  love  the 
pomp  and  splendor  of  the  Eastern  woods,  but 
quite  as  well  I  love  this  Western  sight.  I  love  to 
see  the  autumnal  sun  send  its  rays  parallel  down 
some  tree-crowded  glen,  and  fill  the  hosts  of 
leaves  with  resplendent  light.  Then  they  seem 
akin  to  the  radiant  clouds. 

The  great  woods  are  doomed.  Famed  Sher- 
wood, the  haunt  of  Robin  Hood,  is  no  more  leg- 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  203 

endary  than  are  most  of  the  great  woods  of  the 
Eastern  and  Middle  States,  that  were  the  haunt 
of  the  Huron  and  the  Iroquois.  They  exist  only, 
as  their  inhabitants,  on  the  pages  of  the  early  his- 
torian and  the  novelist. 

And  the  woods  on  the  heights?  Much  longer, 
I  suspect,  before  the  mountains  are  robbed  of 
their  woody  splendor.  Indeed,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  that  time  may  never  come.  A  thousand 
years  from  now,  and  on  the  mountains  the  au- 
tumn colors  may  be  the  same.  The  foliage  may 
be  taking  on  the  selfsame  kind  of  glory  that  it 
wears  this  day.  And  then  not  a  tree  of  all  the 
Eastern  forests  is  likely  to  stand. 

Take  from  America's  most  noted  poets  those 
passages  referring  to  autumn,  and  what  a  loss 
were  there!  Gone  would  be  the  more  original 
matter  in  the  National  literature. 

"That  time  of  year  thou  mayest  in  me  behold 
When  yellow  leaves,  or  none,  or  few,  do  hang 
Upon  these  boughs  which  shake  against  the 
cold." 


204  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

Always  there  is  with  the  poets  of  Europe,  in  their 
descriptions  of  autumn,  a  tone  of  lament,  a  tone 
of  sorrow.  Sorrow,  I  mean,  without  a  corre- 
sponding pride  in  the  beauty  of  the  thing  de- 
scribed. Keats,  with  his  leaf;  Hood,  with  his 
gathered  gold;  Scott,  with  his  "shroud  of  rus- 
sett,"  are  as  plaintive  as  Shelley.  Only  Words- 
worth, with  his  mountain  ash,  and  Tennyson, 
with  his  "hills  and  scarlet-mingled  woods;"  ap- 
proach in  the  least,  the  American  feeling. 

Emerson,  Longfellow,  Bryant  and  Holland: 
America's  poets  do  not  see  autumn  as  those  of 
the  British  Isles.  Less  and  less,  as  we  leave  the 
modern  verse  and  go  back  into  the  past,  do  the 
poets  exult  in  the  Month  of  Color.  So  in  the 
Greek  and  Roman,  the  Hebrew,  and  in  Shake- 
speare; and  for  scriptural  thought,  we  have  the 
lament  of  Solomon.  We  find  the  moralizing,  but 
not  the  note  of  triumph.  There  is  not  the  boast, 
as  it  were,  over  the  magnificence  of  the  autumn 
color — 

"The  autumn  blaze  of  boundless  woods" — 
that  we  find  in  Bryant's  sonnet. 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  205 

The  winning  of  bread;  that  was  the  original 
text.  Let  the  warrior  or  poet  do  as  he  may,  the 
basis  of  civilization,  is  he  who  tills  the  soil.  "The 
Romans  at  heart  were  farmers."  From  the  lands 
of  unchanging  customs,  civilization  moves  on- 
ward to  the  lusty  west.  Behold  the  new  grain 
lands  of  the  world — Iowa,  Kansas,  Illinois,  Da- 
kota, Minnesota,  Oklahoma,  Nebraska! 

Four  thousand,  five  hundred  feet  above  ocean 
level — the  valleys  of  Utah  are  overly  high  for 
grain.  Yet  the  squares  of  light  or  dark — golden 
or  russet  with  stubble — tell  where  the  husband- 
man is  redeeming  the  waste.  I  can  see  peaks  that 
stand  to  the  east  of  Cache  Valley,  and  others  at 
whose  feet  are  the  fields  of  San  Pete.  There,  I 
know,  are  alpine  fields  that  are  sown  and  reaped, 
and  gleaned  as  carefully  as  any  of  Tyrol,  or  that 
one  of  Palestine  where  Boaz  met  Ruth ! 

Another  day's  harvesting  done,  and  another 
day  gathered  to  the  harvest  of  Time ! 


ON  SLOPE  AND  ON  SHORE. 


XVIII 
ON  SLOPE  AND  ON  SHORE. 

THE  Month  of  Vintage, the  Month  of  Wine ! 
Now  flows  the  juice  of  the  grape,  now  is 
gathered  the  fruit  of  the  vine.    After  the 
plow  and  the  sickle,  come  the  sheaves  of  wheat 
and  the  Harvest  Home ;  after  toil  in  the  vineyard, 
come  the  purple  clusters  and  the  Vintage  Song. 
Could  Pyne,  that  old  classic  thinker,  be  here 
with  me  now,  he  might  see  around  him,  on  gigan- 
tic scale,  his  chromatic  star.  Here  are  his  grouped 

209 


210  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

triads;  here  are  the  primaries,  the  secondaries, 
the  tertiaries  and  the  quadrates.  In  nature's 
warp,  the  reds,  the  yellows,  the  green,  the  orange 
and  the  purples,  are  shot  through  with  the  cit- 
rines, the  russets  and  olives.  All  the  hues  are 
here  except  the  blue,  and  that  is  supplied  by  the 
deeps  of  the  sky.  Even  on  this  lonely  spot  the 
frost  found  some  leaves  to  change,  and  made  rich 
hues  upon  the  vineyard  slopes. 

Shall  my  island  know  a  Poem  of  the  Vine? 
The  Dryads,  the  Oreads,  the  Hamadryads — shall 
I  hear  them  dance  in  mad  joy,  reckless  with  the 
juice  of  the  grape,  will  the  nymphs  and  fauns, 
wanton  here  to  the  notes  of  seven-reeded  Syrinx, 
frenzied  by  the  earth-power  in  the  music  of  Pan? 

"Lured  by  his  notes,  the  nymphs  their  bowers 

forsake ; 

From  every  fountain,  running  stream  and  lake ; 
From  every  hill  and  ancient  grove  around, 
And    to    symphonious    measures    strike    the 
ground." 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  211 

Ah,  no !  Not  here  Silenus  nor  Bacchus.  Dead 
are  the  vine-crowned  gods,  and  in  life  they  came 
not  so  far. 

Whence  came  the  vine?  Vague  is  its  genesis; 
lost,  we  are  told,  in  the  darks  of  antiquity.  The 
far  East,  of  course,  was — in  cultivation — its  orig- 
inal home.  If  we  are  to  judge  by  the  standards  of 
today,  the  finest  wines  of  the  ancients  came,  I 
read,  from  the  islands  of  the  .ffigean  and  Ionian 
Seas.  That  is  Chios,  Lesbos,  Thasos  and  Crete. 
But  neither  of  these  nor  Rhodes,  nor  Cyprus, 
nor  any  famed  spot  of  the  Mediterranean,  any 
more  than  this  poor  island  of  mine,  was  the  orig- 
inal home  of  the  fruit.  On  this  matter,  as  a  late 
commentator  shows,  the  elder  poets  are  dumb. 
Neither  the  lives  of  -ZEchylus,  nor  Homer  nor 
Euripides ;  neither  the  advice  of  Timothy,  nor  the 
questions  of  Psalms;  no,  not  even  the  admoni- 
tions of  Solomon,  throw  any  light  on  the  origin 
of  the  vine. 

Shall  I  yet  be  a  vintner.  Though,  as  yet  I  have 
neither  tun  nor  amphorae,  what  will  my  vintage 


212  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

be?  Shall  it  resemble  the  African,  the  Persian, 
or  the  Indian  Wines?  It  may  be  that  they  shall 
duplicate  those  of  the  Chinese,  the  Russian  or  the 
Turk.  Perhaps  those  of  France  or  Spain.  There 
is  Portugal,  too.  And  Switzerland,  Italy  and 
Hungary,  these  are  all,  or  in  part,  lands  of  the 
vine.  Shall  my  vintage  resemble  the  vintage  of 
those  lands?  Shall  it  know  a  furmarium?  Shall 
I  ever  plunge  a  bottle  of  wine  made  from  the  isl- 
and grapes,  to  cool  in  the  Wasatch  snow?  Will 
my  wines  be  a  Claret,  a  Burgundy,  a  Tokay,  a 
Champagne?  If  I  wish  them  to  resemble  these 
present  sleepy  clays  of  October,  then  there  must 
be  thrown  into  them  the  heads  of  poppies,  as  into 
the  Russian  wine.*  These  vines  of  mine  are  aris- 
tocratic. There  is  naught  of  relationship  be- 
tween these  cuttings,  and  the  Concord,  or  any 
crossed  or  domesticated  wild-grapes  of  the  Amer- 
ican woods.  These  vines  knew  not  of  Vinland, 

*The  above  diary  entries  were  not  made  entirely  in  a 
spirit  of  irony.  The  luscious  fruit  that  the  writer  has 
eaten,  fruits  that  were  raised  on  land  that  had  been  de- 
clared utterly  irreclaimable,  made  him  hopeful  of  a  good 
result. 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  213 

nor  of  Lief,  the  Lucky.  I  have  learned  their  pedi- 
gree. The  Black  Hamburgs  themselves  are  ex- 
clusive. But  the  others?  If  after  the  flood,  Tu- 
bal,the  son  of  Japheth,was  the  first  man  to  settle 
in  Spain,  then  these  vines,  the  Isabellas,  are  of 
most  ancient  stock.  Indeed,  as  through  my  ad- 
visor I  learn,  they  are  then  related — direct — to 
those  cuttings  which  Noah  himself  had  not  neg- 
lected to  place  in  the  ark. 

That  the  grape,  wild  or  cultivated,  is  not  a  na- 
tive of  these  islands,  should  be  no  drawback.  The 
vine  must  fight  its  way.  It  must,  like  the  human 
being,  grow  acclimated.  My  experiment  is  based 
on  these,  the  soil — fallow  for  how  many  thou- 
sand years — the  glowing  suns.  Italy,  Spain, 
Switzerland,  there  is  something  of  all  these  coun- 
tries in  these  western  lands  and  skies. 

Caliban,  with  his  mattock  and  spade,  turns  up 
the  virgin  soil.  The  parts  of  the  grape  are  there ; 
but  the  question  is,  can  I  be  the  Prospero  who 
shall  work  a  change? 

Three  steps  removed — by  this  time  the  vines 
should  know.  From  their  native  East,  the  par- 


214  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

ents  were  brought  to  this  western  land.  Ten 
years  they  stood,  aliens,  on  this  primal  soil.  Then, 
for  one  year,  their  children — these  cuttings — put 
forth  their  roots  and  then  they  themselves  were 
exiled  to  these  island  slopes.  Of  the  grapes  raised 
on  the  high  benches  by  the  dry  farming  method 
or  by  that  process  which,  in  this  land  of  irriga- 
tion ditches,  is  known  as  "without  water,"  the 
Sultana  Seedless  and  the  Purple  Damascus,  has 
come  nearest  to  being  success.  But  of  my  one 
thousand  vines,  the  Agawanas — only  too  few — 
have  best  stood  the  test.  They  have  shown  the 
more  hardihood.  They  are  better  qualified,  per- 
haps, for  this  struggle  than  those  of  illustrious 
names. 

But  this  comes  to  me.  In  that  Indian  name — 
Agawana — there  lies  a  thought.  Perhaps,  after 
all,  my  belief  was  at  fault.  There  may  have  been 
a  romantic  marriage.  Some  old-world  princess 
of  grapes,  nurtured  in  a  vineyard  of  Andalusia, 
may  have  been  wedded  to  a  sturdy  vine  of  the 
primeval  woods.  That  would  be  less  strange 
than  the  wedding  of  Pocahontas. 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  215 

But  there  is  no  romance  about  the  labor  my 
vineyard  requires. 

What  is  to  come?  Walls,  dykes,  causeways, 
embankments,  or  whatever  the  various  devices 
should  be  called ;  one  of  three  miles  in  length,  one 
of  some  ten  or  twelve  miles,  and  another  of  about 
eight  miles — these  were  included  in  the  plan  of  a 
French  engineer  to  metamorphose  the  Inland 
Sea.  From  the  mainland  across  the  narrow  strait, 
between  that  and  the  south  end  of  Church  Island, 
from  the  northern  end  of  the  same  island,  to  the 
south  end  of  Fremont,  and  then  across  the  chan- 
nel to  the  Rocks  of  Promontory,  that  would  be 
the  course  of  the  walls.  Will  this  work  be  done? 
The  first  care  of  the  pioneer  is  the  log  stockade  or 
the  wall  of  defense.  Upon  the  mainland,  such  a 
wall  exists,  or  partly  so.  It  is  made  of  conglom- 
erate, that  is  of  earth  and  pebbles  and  is  among 
the  earliest  work  of  the  Pioneer.  At  certain 
spaces  were  set  room-like  openings  with  port- 
holes in  the  walls  and  a  few  of  these  "forts"  yet 
stand.  The  old  wall  intimidated  the  red-man  or 


216  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

kept  away  the  packs  of  famished  wolves.  Many 
years  must  intervene  between  that  work  of  the 
early  engineers  and  this  monster  enterprise  to  be 
some  day. 

And  yet  another  plan,  the  locomotive  is  to 
come  this  way.  Instead  of  over  the  high  hills  to 
the  northward  (Promontory  Range),  the  lines  of 
steel  are  to  be  carried  across  the  water  on  tres- 
tles, or  the  mountain  rock,  or  the  sea's  heaped- 
up  sands.  To  the  south  of  my  island — Strong's 
Knob— will  be  the  objective  point,  and  from 
thence  to  Lucin,  across  the  level  of  the  open  des- 
ert. 

What  will  this  do  for  Gunnison?  Should  the 
northwest  arm  of  the  Inland  Sea,  to  the  north  of 
the  proposed  cut-off,  be  allowed  to  dry  up,  then 
my  island  will  stand  in  a  plain  of  salt.  Carry  out 
the  Frenchman's  plan,  and  such  must  be  the  re- 
sult. Salt-strangled  vines  must  fall  to  my  lot. 
The  terrible  sterility  of  the  western  desert  would 
advance  this  way,  and  at  last  surround  the  island 
shores.  If  the  dykes  are  built,  however,  the  fresh 
water  area  will  include  the  whole  length  of  the 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  217 

brine,  that  is  from  the  eastern  shores  of  the 
eastern  islands,  to  the  mainland  of  the  eastern 
shore.  Willows,  rushes,  orchards  and  fields  will 
come  down  to  the  water's  edge,  and  the  many- 
bladed  grass  take  place  of  the  pebbles  and  sand. 
But  the  mystery,  the  ancient  poetry  of  the  Inland 
Sea  will  be  gone. 

But  O,  ye  leaves,  that  I  have  watched  so  fond- 
ly, that  have  sprouted  so  greenly,  that  grew  so 
bravely,  that  lived  thy  allotted  days  and  now 
hang  transformed  on  the  parent  stem — shall  ye 
be  the  last  of  a  race?  O,  in  the  future,  grow  pur- 
ple my  grapes  like  these  autumn  hills;  be  golden 
like  this  mellow  sun;  be  wan  with  the  October 
frost  touch  like  the  haze-paled  stars ! 


VOICE  OF  THE  SWAN. 


XIX. 
VOICE  OF  THE  SWAN. 

WITH  shortened  days  and  a  lowered  tem- 
perature, there  has  been  ushered  in  a 
time  of  subdued  and  gloomy  splendor. 
For  more  than  a  month  now  huge  smoke  col- 
umns have  stood  along  the  horizon,  and  by  night, 
from  the  conflagrations  among  the  leaves  and 
needles  of  the  mountain  oaks  and  pines,  there 
has  been  reflected  across  the  waters  a  dull  red 
glow.      On    my  island,  the  tall,  coarse  grasses, 

221 


222  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

scorched  stiff  by  past  heat,  or  beaten  by  the  rains, 
are  white  each  morn  with  a  heavy  rime.  Long 
since  the  old  and  the  gray-winged  gull  have 
flown.  There  is  silence  around,  but  from  the 
sky  there  falls,  softened  by  distance,  the  disson- 
ant clang  of  migrating  geese,  and  once  I  heard 
a  sound  to  stir  the  blood  as  one  listened,  the  long, 
rich  call  of  the  southward-flying  swan. 

From  the  frozen  north  the  swan  has  come.  He 
has  left,  amid  the  piney  regions  of  British  Co- 
lumbia, his  summer  haunts.  He  has  seen  the 
Flathead  and  Yellowstone  Lakes;  he  has  rested, 
perhaps,  by  the  source  of  the  Missouri,  the  head- 
waters of  the  Lewis  and  Henry's  Forks,  and  the 
streams  of  the  Couer  d-Alene.  What  sights  the 
bird  beholds!  Since  first  he  winged  his  flight, 
how  changed  the  scene!  In  that  past  year,  no 
roads  he  saw ;  no  quarries  that  gash  the  hills ;  he 
saw  not  below  him  the  city  with  its  thousand 
lamps;  the  smelter  with  its  glare  of  furnace  fires. 
And  how  dim  to  the  swan  must  appear  the  light 
at  my  window,  and  how  small  the  hut  and  my  toy 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  223 

of  an  island,  the  island  itself  but  a  speck  in  the 
Inland  Sea. 

And  where  has  "the  Drudge"  not  been?  Like 
the  bird  of  passage,  he  is  now  in  the  north,  now 
in  the  south.  The  life  of  "my  man"  has  been 
most  varied.  He  has  lived  by  land  and  sea.  He 
would  be  useful  on  either  of  these  desert  islands. 
He  might  split  slates  on  Carrington ;  watch  sheep 
on  Fremont;  cattle  on  Stansbury  or  Church.  He 
has  dug  in  the  guano-beds  and  watched  my  vines. 
When  "the  Drudge"  and  I  part  company,  there 
will  be  regret  on  one  side,  at  least. 

No  life  without  ambition;  no  life  without  ro- 
mance. 

Who  does  not  like  to  see  a  reserve  in  strength. 
Added  to  the  Drudge's  giant-like  body  and  limb, 
are  unexpected  qualities  of  heart  and  head.  Some 
of  these  I  have  learned  to  admire.  Sorrow  and 
disappointment  have  found  out  my  man  as  many 
another,  and  in  his  slow  mind  he  has  been  com- 
pelled to  work  out  for  himself  a  solution  to  the 
problems  of  life.  Talkative  or  tactiturn,  one  or 


224  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

the  other,  so  I  find  those  who  have  lived  much 
alone.  The  drudge  is  a  happy  medium. .  I  have 
listened  to  his  words  and  I  know  his  troubles.  It 
is  not  without  a  bit  of  quiet  vanity  that  the  man 
sees  himself  so  often  an  occupant  of  my  island 
sketches,  nor  need  I  a  better  critic  than  the 
Drudge  has  sometimes  been.  Extremes  meet. 
It  is  the  truly  cultured  and  the  rough,  unlettered 
who  give  a  valuable  judgment.  The  lesson 
comes  often  when  we  least  expect  it,  and  not 
without  gratification,  not  unmixed  with  irony, 
did  the  maker  of  the  sketches  themselves  see  in 
his  animate  subject  the  same  thoughts  at  work 
that  passed  through  his  own  brain  as  he  pursued 
his  different  task. 

To-day  the  Drudge  found  a  piece  of  wreck. 
Boats  seldom  come  here,  and  this  piece  of  timber, 
bleached  into  perfect  whiteness  by  exposure  to 
heat  and  brine,  must  have  floated  for  many  a 
year.  Cached  among  the  stones  that  form  the 
base  of  the  crow's  nest,  on  the  summit  of  the 
Northern  Cliff,  there  is  a  metal  cylinder.  It  con- 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  225 

tains  the  names  of  boats  and  their  crews  who 
have  touched  here  from  time  to  time.  The  num- 
ber is  small;  but  five  boats  mentioned  and  one  of 
these  is  my  own.  Yet  wrecks  there  have  been. 
Perhaps  this  relic  which  the  Drudge  has  found, 
is  a  bit  of  the  'Pioneer.  It  may  have  come  from 
the  Star  of  the  West;  or  it  may  be  from  the  Ptu- 
bustah,  or  the  Salicornia.  At  least  its  age  seems 
to  say  that  it  came  from  one  of  those  initial  craft 
of  poetic  or  uneuphonious  name,  that  were  first 
to  sail  on  the  Inland  Sea. 

His  palace  or  his  prison,"  so  Kingsley  declared, 
England  to  him  must  be.  My  island  life  has  been 
the  antithesis  of  travel.  From  the  day  of  my  ma- 
rooning until  now,  my  adventures,  if  such  they 
be,  have  all  transpired  within  the  confines  of  this 
one  scene.  The  spectacles  of  nature  which  I 
have  witnessed,  though  novel  in  themselves,  have 
all  been  over  these  familiar  outlines  of  foreground 
and  distance.  It  has  lacked  one  pleasure  of  travel 
— surprise.  Whether  or  no  one  can  derive  the 
same  degree  of  profit  from  a  daily  observation  of 


226  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

the  scenes  around  a  given  point,  under  the  chang- 
ing phases  of  the  day  and  year,  and  with  none  or 
a  few  companions,  as  he  can  from  a  rapid  survey, 
in  constantly  changing  company,  of  widely  dis- 
similar scenes,  it  were  difficult  to  tell.  The  possi- 
bilities lie  in  the  conditions  of  mind.  Perhaps  one 
must  be  more  analytic  in  his  seeing,  to  enjoy  the 
former  method  of  looking  at  nature  and  man- 
kind, in  preference  to  the  latter.  During  my 
watching  what  happenings  have  been!  Events 
fraught  with  importance  to  the  race  have  tran- 
spired. But  I  have  been  taking  concern  in  the 
changes  wrought  within  the  bounds  of  this  small 
place;  have  been  intent  upon  the  doings  of  a 
mere  handful  of  men,  or  watching  the  unfolding 
of  a  few  green  leaves.  Yet  in  the  pleasure  de- 
rived from  such  a  life  my  island  has  been  made  to 
me  more  a  palace  than  a  prison. 

Now  comes  the  end  of  autumn.  The  last  cold 
rain  has  frozen  as  it  fell.  In  sheets  and  ice-em- 
bossings it  gleams  on  the  island  rocks.  There  is 
a  tone  of  menace,  or  a  moan-like  sound  as  the 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  227 

night-wind  moves  through  the  narrow  space  be- 
tween my  hut  and  the  cliff. 

"The  suns  grow  meek,  and  the  meek  suns  grow 
brief." 

Dark  stand  the  somber  hills,  brown  under  their 
chilly  glaze.  Still  there  lingers  at  eve  a  crimson 
glow  on  the  eastern  heights,  and  deeply  yellow — 
aureolin-tinted,  dashed  with  cadmium — are  the 
western  skies.  Along  the  horizons,  the  moun- 
tain chains — their  slopes  still  marked  with  some 
former  color,  and  on  their  summits  the  white  of 
the  newly-fallen  snow — show  luminous  through 
the  ambient  air.  The  autumn  passes,  yet  it  passes 
in  specious  mien. 

Long  since  the  old  and  the  gray-winged  gulls 
have  flown.  There  is  silence  around.  But  once 
more  there  falls  from  out  the  sky,  and  softened 
by  distance,  the  dissonant  clang  of  migrating 
geese.  Once  more  I  hear,  a  sound  to  stir  the 
blood  as  one  listens,  the  trumpet  call  of  the 
southward  flying  swan. 


A  LAST  DRIFT-WOOD  FIRE. 


XX. 

A  LAST  DRIFT-WOOD  FIRE. 

MY  friends  are  here;  my  household  goods 
are  piled  aboard  the  yacht.    The  boats  of 
the  sifters  departed  ere  this  one  arrived; 
the  Gunnison  for  a  time,  will  be  given  over  to 
solitude  again. 

These  36,806,400  seconds;   613,440  minutes; 
10,224  hours;  426  days,  60  6-7  weeks,  these   14 
231 


232  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

months ;  or,  to  bring  the  calculation  to  a  finer  di- 
vision, and  one  of  nature's  own,  42,940,800,  one- 
sixtieth  part  of  those  heart-beats  that  go  to  make 
up  man's  allotment  of  three  score  years  and  ten — 
these  since  my  roof-tree  was  placed.  Now  my 
homesteading  is  done  and  I  am  free  to  depart.  So 
many  heart-beats  while  I  lay  asleep,  so  many 
passed  in  action,  so  many  in  reverie;  so  many 
given  to  this  and  so  many  to  that,  and  the  time 
has  slipped  away.  Can  it  be  that  fourteen  months 
have  elapsed  already.  Not  so  long  ago  it  seems 
as  yesterday  since  the  yacht,  that  now  waits  to 
bear  me  from  hence,  entered  with  its  unusual 
cargo,  this  desert  port.  Short  now  seems  the 
time  since  we  embarked  with  our  boat's  sails  set 
wing  to  wing;  since  we  passed  one  by  one  the  ter- 
minal peaks  of  the  Desert  Range,  and  opened  out 
the  bays  and  straits,  as  slowly  we  came  from  the 
south,  and  so,  by  the  jutting  rocks  and  black  head 
of  Strong's  Knob,  came  at  last  to  these  island 
shores,  and  I  began  my  now  completed  vigil. 

One  of  the  strange  things  in  life  is  this — there 
is  no  experience  one  would  care  to  have  missed, 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  233 

I  mean  when  once  that  experience  is  passed  and 
gone.  So  it  is  with  this  one — I  should  dislike  to 
part  with  it  now.  What  I  had  done,  had  I  not 
performed  this  act,  who  can  tell?  This  is  not  an 
arc  to  determine  my  circle  and  yet — 

Under  certain  conditions,  a  place  becomes  a 
part  of  us;  we  own  it.  We  absorb  it  into  our 
lives.  It  cannot  be  taken  from  us.  It  is  ours, 
and  without  title  or  deed.  We  are  associated 
with  a  certain  spot  of  earth,  we  have  our  lives 
shaped  by  it,  or,  if  that  be  not  the  case,  Tfce 
stamp  the  place  with  our  individuality. 
THIS  PLACE  IS  MINE. 

Here  I  make  an  inventory  of  property  and  ben- 
efits accrued  to  me,  since  the  day  of  my  House- 
warming  : 

A  desert  island,  that  is  an  island  which  is  a  des- 
ert now,  but  if  water  shall  come  from  below 
these  rocks,  one  whereon  I  may  yet  eat  the  grape 
from  the  vine,  if  not  the  fig  from  the  tree. 

My  Hut,  a  place  of  refuge,  a  rock  of  strength. 


234  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

A  step  toward  an  understanding  of  the  noble 
Art  of  Horticulture:  "Do  men  gather  grapes  of 
thorns,  or  figs  of  thistles?" 

A  proof  undeniable  of  the  fact  that  it  is  always 
the  unexpected  that  happens.  An  opening  of  the 
eyes  to  the  truth  that  surrender  is  sometimes  a 
victory.  A  seeing,  too,  that  while  we  stand  fum- 
bling at  the  door  which  is  locked,  another  may 
stand  wide  open. 

To  see  plainly,  to  know  by  actual  climbing,  that 
mountain  which  lies  between  the  moment  of  re- 
solve and  the  moment  of  achievement. 

To  comprehend  the  astonishing  fact  which 
Aurelius  has  pointed  out:  that  in  self-examina- 
tion, one  is  not  only  himself,  both  plaintiff  and 
defendant,  but  judge  and  jury  as  well.  Also  the 
attorney  for  the  prosecution,  and  for  the  defense. 

To  see  the  true  relationship  between  the  stern 
justice  of  the  Mosaic  Law,  and  the  greater  power 
of  the  Golden  Rule. 

That  although  Charity  begins  at  Home,  it 
should  not  end  there. 

An  understanding  of  the  verse  of  Ecclesiastes : 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  235 

"Wherefore  I  perceive  that  there  is  nothing 
better  than  that  a  man  should  rejoice  in  his  own 
works,  for  that  is  his  portion:  For  who  shall  see 
what  shall  come  after  him?" 

Also  the  verse  of  Revelations: 

"Because  thou  sayest,  I  am  rich,  and  increased 
with  goods,  and  have  need  of  nothing ;  and  know- 
est  not  that  thou  art  wretched  and  miserable,  and 
poor  and  blind  and  naked." 

Therefore—- 
To realize  that  the  motive  should  be  in  the 
deed  and  not  the  event. 

To  learn  the  wisdom  that  lies  in  Contempla- 
tion and  the  forsaking  of  Works. 
And  the  majesty  that  lies  in  the  simple  words: 
"Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by 
every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of 
God." 

V 

And  besides  these  benefits — 

A  bronzed  countenance,  and  a  gain  in  physical 
strength  and  well-being. 

A  house-cleaning  of  the  brain;  a  discarding  of 
useless  furniture  therein ;  together  with  a  sweep- 


236  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

ing  out  of  cob-webbed  corners,  and  a  general  ad- 
mittance of  wholesome  light  and  air. 

Lastly— 

The  virtue  of  possessing  my  soul  in  patience, 
and  the  memory  of  four  hundred,  twenty-six 
days,  the  effect  of  which,  mentally,  I  cannot  just 
at  present  weigh,  but  which  I  believe  will  be  ben- 
eficial. 

Not  a  poor  investment  of  time,  surely,  nor  one 
likely  to  cause  me  regret. 

Tonight  we  illumined  the  island  with  a  drift- 
wood fire.  An  enormous  pile  we  made;  the 
trunks  and  branches  of  the  Sacrobatus,  the  pine 
and  the  fir,  storm-torn  from  their  native  rocks, 
and  by  the  course  of  many  waters,  brought  to 
these  alien  shores. 

Music? — is  not  the  charm  of  out-door  music 
everywhere  the  same?  "Music  at  Nightfall," 
touches  all  hearts  alike.  Savage  and  civilized  na- 
tions are  alike  in  this.  Around  their  watch-fires 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  237 

chant  the  American  Indian,  the  native  Austra- 
lian, the  Botocudor  of  Brazil.  At  twilight  the 
Laplander  sings  his  reindeer  song,  the  Arab 
touches  the  tambor,  the  Russian  utters  the  Song 
of  the  Steppe.  Then  the  Arcadian  blows  upon 
the  pan-pipes,  then  is  heard  the  Yodle  of  the  Ty- 
rolean mountaineer.  On  the  waves  of  Mediter- 
ranean, the  fjords  of  Norway,  the  fisherman  be- 
guiles his  time  with  song.  Then  the  ferrymen  on 
some  Highland  Loch,  on  famed  Killarney,  keeps 
time  with  voice  and  oar-beat.  Probably  the  an- 
cient Briton,  paddling  his  coracle  of  wicker,  was 
as  susceptible  to  the  influence  of  out-door  music, 
as  were  the  Venetians  in  their  gondolas,  or  as  is 
the  dusky  steersman  of  today,  gliding  in  the  dah- 
abeeh  up  or  down  old  Nile. 

A  grotesque  spectacle  we  must  have  made  as 
we  sang  beneath  the  stars.  Brothers  to  the  sav- 
age and  the  minstrel,  we  drew  the  continents  to- 
gether and  made  the  races  one.  As  filled  with 
animal  life  and  roused  emotions,  we  sent  a  mel- 
ody across  the  waste,  we  heard  an  obligate  of 
wind  and  sea.  My  own  and  the  sifter's  hut,  the 


XXI 
GUNNISON  ISLAND— FAREWELL. 

KIND  of  shock  that  sets  one's  heart 
ajar." 

At  5  A.  M.  we  quitted  the  bay.  Land  and 
sea  were  but  vaguely  defined.  There  was  a 
struggle  between  moonlight  and  dawn.  Our 
mainsail  was  double-reefed  for  we  entertained 
misgivings  of  the  weather  outside.  The  wind 

241 


242  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

had  been  dead  to  the  north  and,  since  midnight, 
blowing  hard.  On  our  side  of  the  hill,  the  water 
was  somewhat  sheltered,  but  wake  as  often  as  we 
would,  we  heard  the  crashing  of  waves  on  the 
northern  shore. 

Half  a  mile  from  the  island  and  we  began  to 
catch  the  wind.  It  was  not  so  boisterous  at  first, 
but  there  was  enough  to  make  my  Home  fall  rap- 
idly astern.  In  a  very  short  time,  Gunnison  ap- 
peared to  be  farther  away  than  Strong's  Knob, 
six  miles  to  the  south,  and  its  outlines  were  ex- 
ceedingly grand. 

Soon,  however,  there  was  little  time  for  admir- 
ing the  scene.  Winds  and  waves  increased  until 
the  latter  would  have  tossed  a  good-sized  ship. 
The  point  we  desired  to  make  lay  about  twenty 
miles  distant,  somewhat  south  of  east,  so  that  our 
course  was  nearly  along  a  trough  of  the  sea,  but 
in  order  to  quarter  the  waves,  we  directed  our 
course  more  northerly. 

With  the  waves  already  so  high,  and  the  wind 
increasing,  anxious  faces  might  have  been  seen 
upon  the  yacht.  Not  but  that  we  expected  to 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  243 

weather  it  through  all  right,  but  when  it  taxed 
the  strength  of  two  men  to  manage  the  tiller  of 
such  a  tiny  craft  as  ours,  then  affairs  were  be- 
coming serious.  Perhaps  as  a  landsman,  I  over- 
estimated the  danger,  but  still  I  believe,  even 
were  such  the  case,  that  every  man  on  board  the 
boat  devoutly  wished  himself  ashore.  Not  in  any 
craven  way.  Perish  the  thought!  Not  wishing 
to  have  evaded  the  danger  then  and  there,  and 
thus  have  missed  its  lesson,  but,  rather,  that  we 
had  fought  it  successfully  through.  All  men,  save 
born  cowards,  must  know  of  the  thrill,  the  secret 
sense  of  exultation,  engendered  sometimes  in  the 
presence  of  danger.  To  those  who  pass  their 
lives  in  a  continual  security,  must  sometimes 
come  a  longing,  the  knowledge  of  a  desire  not 
satisfied.  In  the  present  case,  it  might  be  argued, 
there  was  no  way  of  escape ;  true,  but  under  sim- 
ilar circumstances,  no  one  need  expect  to  make  a 
cruise  across  the  Inland  Sea,  without  incurring 
the  same  amount  of  risk. 

By  sunrise,  the  blow  had  come  to  its  hardest. 
The  "white  squall"  was  strong  indeed.  The  waves 


244  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

had  a  vicious  appearance,  the  foam  torn  fiercely 
from  off  their  crests.  We  experienced  one  try- 
ing moment  as  we  dropped  the  reefed  mainsail,  a 
huge  green  wave  striking  the  boat  a  terrific  blow. 
For  the  moment  we  were  surrounded  in  hissing 
foam.  The  next  minute  we  were  high  on  a  crest, 
the  foresail  holding  us  steadily  enough  to  the 
wind. 

That  was  the  turning  point;  we  began  to 
breathe.  The  waves  grew  no  higher;  soon  we 
fancied  they  were  growing  less.  What  a  magnif- 
icent sight  it  was,  as  the  sun  lifting  above  a  low 
bank  of  clouds,  streamed  on  the  turbulent  sea! 
Struck  by  the  level  rays,  how  old  the  western 
mountains  appeared;  centuries  upon  centuries  of 
age  seemed  suddenly  heaped  on  their  heads.  To- 
ward the  sun  how  beautiful  it  was!  The  high, 
transparent  waves  pierced  through  by  the  light, 
so  that  they  came  forward  like  craggy  walls,  em- 
erald below,  and  topaz  above. 

"The  yellow  beam  he  throws, 
Gilds  the  green  wave  that  trembles  as  it  glows." 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  245 

Only  those  lines  were  never  written  to  describe 
such  a  wild,  tumultuous,  onsweeping  of  waters 
such  as  we  looked  upon. 

In  another  hour  we  had  reached  comparative 
quiet.  Under  the  shelter  of  the  tall  Promontory 
Hills,  the  Inland  Sea  only  acknowledged  the  past 
blow  by  running  in  short,  jerky  swells,  the  most 
trying  to  landsmen  of  all  motions  of  water,  and 
was  fast  approaching  a  state  of  calm. 

While  coming  through  the  channel,  between 
Fremont  Island  and  Promontory  Point,  we  made 
a  stop  at  the  latter  place.  Looking  westward,  a 
bluff  of  light-colored  sandstone,  with  lower  pro- 
jections of  wave-washed  slate,  jutted  boldly  over 
the  quiet  water.  Across  the  sea,  the  western 
mountains  showed  beautifully  clear,  especially 
the  Stansbury  Island,  whose  two  high  domes 
stood  darkly-shadowed  against  the  sharp,  dim 
snow-peaks  of  the  Tuilla  Range.  Over  their 
summits  was  now  a  massy  cumulus,  lovely  in 
form  and  color.  Seen  near  by,  the  cloud  was 
probably  of  a  dazzling  whiteness,  with  a  sugges- 
tion of  thunder  in  the  lurid  shadows,  but  from 


246  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

our  far  distance,  it  showed  on  the  sky  in  the  most 
exquisite  aerial  tints. 

Northward  of  this,  across  the  great  main  body 
of  the  sea,  which  we  had  just  placed  behind  us, 
amid  the  paleness  of  distance  and  the  closing 
year,  I  sought  to  distinguish  a  well-known  outline. 
Alas!  It  had  vanished  from  sight — Gunnison 
Island,  farewell. 


SUPPLEMENT. 


SUPPLEMENT. 

IT  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  give  here,  a  few 
general  thoughts  upon  the  Inland  Sea.    Sev- 
eral letters  of  which  I  am  in  receipt  since  the 
first  publication  of  this  book,   contain  various 
questions  which  are  answered  herein.    In  most 
cases,  the  questions  asked  are  indicative  of  a  de- 
sire on  the  part  of  their  writers,  to  become  ac- 
quainted with  the  scenes  this  book  suggests,  as 
well  as  those  actually  described. 

The  Inland  Sea  bears  the  reputation  of  being  a 
most  dangerous  as  well  as  a  novel  sheet  of  water, 
and  the  reputation  is  merited.  Like  all  moun- 
tain-locked seas,  this  one  is  subject  to  quick  and 
sudden  change.  It  has  iron-bound  shores — at 
places — ugly  cross-currents,  and  these,  in  connec- 
tion with  sunken  reefs,  often  cramp  the  mariner 
in  a  choice  of  sea-room.  In  a  cruise  of  any  length 
heavy  seas  are  likely  to  be  met  with.  It  is  almost 
impossible  for  those  whose  sailing  has  been  lim- 

249 


250  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

ited  to  lighter  waters,  to  realize  the  force  with 
which  the  briny  waves  can  strike.  In  spite  of  its 
density,  however,  the  water  has  a  peculiar  apti- 
tude for  transmitting  motion,  so  that  in  a  short 
time  the  waves  rise  to  a  trying  height,  though,  be 
it  understood,  they  fall  as  quickly  upon  the  ces- 
sation of  a  blow. 

Promontory  Point  is  associated  in  my  mind 
with  another  stress,  other  than  that  one  already 
described.  In  the  month  of  April,  and  near  the 
spot  that  gave  us  before  so  kindly  a  shelter,  I 
passed,  but  in  another  boat — the-A/yo — the  prop- 
erty of  Judge  Wenner  of  Fremont  Island,  as 
nasty  a  day  as  one  would  care  to  see.  On  the 
previous  evening,  we  had  anchored  in  a  neighbor- 
ing channel,  and  on  the  morning  of  Easter  Sun- 
day attempted  the  Gunnison  run.  By  a  coming 
storm,  we  were  forced  back  again  to  the  shore. 
This  time  we  were  caught  on  the  west  side  of 
Promontory  Ridge,  and  for  thirteen  long  hours 
we  faced  the  teeth  of  a  northwest  gale,  that,  like 
a  living  and  infuriated  creature,  lashed  and 
roared  around  us. 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  251 

Who  was  the  first  white  man  to  visit  an  island 
in  the  Inland  Sea?  When,  in  the  company  of  Kit 
Carson,  "The  Pathfinder,"  in  1843,  rode  over  to 
the  Disappointment  Island — as  they  first  named 
the  Fremont — he  thought  that  their  boat  was  the 
very  first  to  touch  on  that  island  shore.  But  of 
the  truth  of  that  supposition,  there  is  reason  to 
doubt.  Who  cut  the  cross  on  the  face  of  the 
rock?  This,  too,  is  unknown.  The  same  man,  it 
may  be,  one  of  the  zealous  old  missionaries  who 
lost  that  crucifix  and  rosary,  which  were  recently 
dug  up,  from  a  depth  of  four  feet  below  the  sur- 
face of  the  ground,  by  some  laborers  engaged  in 
cutting  a  water-ditch,  in  one  of  the  valleys  of  the 
eastern  shore.  We  know  therefrom  that  the  Cath- 
olic missionaries  traversed  the  neighboring  val- 
leys, and  that  they  might  have  visited  some  of  the 
nearer  islands,  why  should  we  doubt?  The  cross 
on  Fremont  was  cut  on  the  smooth  face  of  a  rock, 
now  fast  crumbling  away,  and  is  toward  the 
north.  By  some  it  has  been  imagined  that  the 
emblem  was  cut  by  Carson,  but  Fremont  does 


252  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

not  mention  it  in  his  report,  although  he  wrote  of 
some  trifling  matters,  the  loss  of  the  telescope 
cover,  for  instance.  This  object  has  been  much 
sought  after.  Judge  Wenner  lived  for  several 
years  with  his  wife  and  children,  and  is  now  bur- 
ied on  Fremont  Island.  Church  Island — Ante- 
lope— had  early  an  occupant.  The  young  army 
officer,  whose  name  the  island  bears,  preceded 
me  to  Gunnison.  But  myself,  I  believe,  was  the 
first  to  live  for  love  on  one  of  the  islands  of  the 
Inland  Sea. 

In  several  letters  questions  have  been  asked  in 
regard  to  effects  of  mirage.  In  the  accompany- 
ing diagram  are  shown  three  effects  of  mirage  on 
the  Inland  Sea.  Such  are  rarely  seen.  But  they 
may  sometimes  be  witnessed  on  a  hot  afternoon 
in  July  or  August,  although  increased  humidity  in 
the  surrounding  atmosphere,  owing  to  irrigation, 
etc.,  threaten  to  do  away  with  them  entirely. 
Figure  I  is  a  bit  of  western  shore,  detached  by 
mirage  and  apparently  floating  in  air,  land  and 
reflection  being  indistinguishable,  and  the  hori- 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  253 

zon  line  eaten  away.  In  Figure  II,  there  is  the 
same  effect  of  land  and  reflection,  but,  instead  of 
appearing  to  float  in  the  air,  there  is  a  semblance 
to  some  strange  barge  moving  along  the  horizon. 
This  horizon  is,  as  will  readily  be  imagined,  a 
false  one,  and  is  caused  by  a  breeze  moving  on 
the  near  water,  while  the  true  horizon  is  calm  and 
lost  in  the  sky. 

In  color  there  is  a  witchery  about  the  mirage 
far  beyond  the  reach  of  the  artist's  palette.  Thus, 
in  Figure  II,  the  sky  was  of  a  golden-gray,  abso- 
lutely dazzling  with  light,  while  the  island  and 
its  reflection  were  of  a  fiery  yet  decided  blue.  In 
Figure  III,  again  of  islands  floating  in  air — in  re- 
ality a  line  of  hills — the  color  was  altogether  ex- 
quisite ;  golden-gray  sky,  gold- white  clouds,  with 
distant  water  the  same  tint  as  the  sky,  which,  in- 
deed, it  appeared  to  be.  Nearer  the  water  was  of 
a  pale,  almost  invisible  green,  crossed  by  waves, 
not  perceptible  to  the  eye  as  such,  but  as  dim 
blurs,  caused  by  the  faintest,  gentlest  touch  of 
winds. 

There  is  another  phenomenon  to  be  seen  at  in- 


254  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

frequent  periods  on  the  Inland  Sea,  one  that  is 
unpaintable,  and  also,  I  believe,  entirely  local. 
It  is  to  be  witnessed  during  the  calm  summer  twi- 
lights, when  the  pale,  fairy-like  tints  on  the  water 
are  breathed  upon  by  opposite  currents  of  lan- 
guid wind.  As  they  interplay  in  bands,  in  points, 
in  shifting  isles  of  amber,  azure  and  rose,  the 
whole  surface  of  the  sea  shimmers  and  gleams 
like  a  silken  robe  studded  with  countless  pearls. 

The  completion  of  the  Ogden-Lucin  Cut-off  of 
the  Southern  Pacific  Railway  has  wrought  a 
change.  The  long  line  of  piles  and  rock  fillings 
of  that  great  enterprise  has  materially  altered  the 
conditions  on  the  upper  end  of  the  Inland  Sea. 
There  is  now  a  station  on  the  rocks  at  Point 
Promontory,  and  another  near  Strong's  Knob,  on 
the  western  shore.  The  naptha  launch  or  the 
cutter  has  supplanted  the  sail  boat.  The  Augusta, 
or  either  of  her  sister  boats  of  the  fleet,  runs 
across  in  an  hour  or  two  those  long  reaches  of 
water  where  the  sail-boat  lies  becalmed,  or  la- 
bors slowly  against  an  adverse  wind.  The  ma- 
chine has  its  practical  superiority,  the  sail  its 


OUR  INLAND  SEA.  255 

poetry.*  I  contrast  in  my  mind,  a  midnight  an- 
chorage near  Strong's  Knob — my  first  visit — 
when  the  great  conoidal  hill  lay  pale  in  the  misty 
moonlight,  and  where,  in  the  protected  waters  of 
a  desert  bay,  I  was  lulled  to  sleep  by  the  noise  of 
waves  outside,  and  that  one  which  lately  I  passed 
at  the  same  place.  Now  I  listened  in  my  waking 
moments,  from  the  bed  of  that  home-like  car,  to 
the  throb  and  rumble  of  the  passing  trains,  bear- 
ing their  passengers  and  commerce  across  the 
land. 

Gunnison  Island  and  the  view  from  its  peak 
are  somewhat  changed.  I  mean  since  the  Cambria 
departed  the  bay.  From  the  Crow's  Nest,  the 
long  line  of  the  Cut-off  is  seen  in  silhouette 
against  the  shining  water;  the  locomotives  with 
their  plumes  of  smoke,  and  long  trains  of  cars  ap- 
pearing in  the  midst  of  the  extended  scene  most 
Lilliputian.  Very  lonely  and  desolate  was  the  isl- 
and itself.  No  living  soul  was  there.  No  an- 


*My  first  cruise  was  made  in  the  yacht  Maud,  owned  by 
Mr.  A.  S.  Patterson,  but  the  greater  number  in  the  cata- 
maran Cambria,  built  and  owned  by  Mr.  D.  L.  Davis. 


256  OUR  INLAND  SEA. 

swer  came  to  the  salute  that  was  given  by  the 
Augusta's  whistle.  The  door  of  my  hut  stood 
open;  the  sifter's  cabin  was  empty.  A  couple  of 
wild  mice  scampered  across  the  hut  floor,  and 
disappeared  through  a  hole  they  had  made.  With 
this  exception,  I  saw  not  a  thing  of  life.  My 
vines  were  dead,  not  a  stem  or  shoot  of  my  hope 
had  lived.  But  a  growth  of  thorn  and  bramble 
was  on  that  cairn  which  told  of  a  human  tragedy. 
A  huge  raven  that  circled  around  and  around, 
and  uttered  its  dismal  croaks  just  above  the  island 
peak,  did  not  once  alight.  Was  that  sable  thing 
a  living  bird?  Or  was  it  the  shade  of  Devil?  As 
I  stepped  again  aboard  the  Augusta,  I  noticed, 
near  the  boat's  prow,  a  drowning  butterfly.  Its 
extended  and  bright  blue  wings  quivered  con- 
vulsively, as,  helpless,  it  drifted  across  the  brine. 
And  so  ends  the  tale. 


